Thursday, August 2, 2012

Do you have enough?

Great article on The Atlantic: What My Son's Disabilities Taught Me About 'Having It All'. The author encourages us to stop asking "Do I have it all?" and instead ask "Do I have enough?"

Reading Marie Myung-Ok Lee's article reminded me of a quote that I memorized to say whenever I need to remember to be joyous/positive: "If we are not happy and joyous at this season, for what other season shall we wait and for what other time shall we look?...Be calm, be strong, be grateful, and become a lamp full of light, that the darkness of sorrows be annihilated, and the sun of everlasting joy arise from the dawning place of heart and soul, shining brightly." ~`Abdu'l-Bahá

My favorite snippets from Marie Myung-Ok Lee's article:
"When I look at friends and acquaintances, many with perfectly beautiful children and wonderful lives, and see how desperately unhappy or stressed they are about balancing work and family, I think to myself that the solution to many problems is deceptively obvious. We are chasing the wrong things, asking ourselves the wrong questions. It is not, "Can we have it all?" -- with "all" being some kind of undefined marker that shall forever be moved upwards out of reach just a little bit with each new blessing. We should ask instead, "Do we have enough?" 

[W]hat bothers me is the implicit expectation: that people are waiting for our inevitable breakdown, a breast-beating howl against fate that is sure to come once we realize we'll truly never "have it all" -- because of our imperfect son.........For all the people who are puzzled by my seeming happiness, I'll be glad to let them know my "secret." I'm not in denial, I'm not on antidepressants, and I don't live in a fantasy world. I have a wonderful husband and I am pursuing a career I've dreamed of since I was nine years old. I have a beautiful son, friends, and a working stove. I am not paraplegic. I have parents who, through luck and fate, had me here in the United States, and not in North Korea. I live in a time where my awful vision can be corrected with glasses. I am a college graduate. I am never hungry unless I choose to be. Do I have enough? Resoundingly: yes. And I ask you to take a moment: I suspect you might, too."


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