(By Corey Rotella, CNA Extraordinaire)

I think the greatest lesson, the one that has served me the most is that life will never adapt to me. Life does not bend and twist itself to fit into my whims and desires and little plans. It’s just never worked that way. Years of futilely pounding my head against the wall and then resenting the headache has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that my life does not belong in a box; not even one of my own design.

      It is not the sort of lesson that I get to learn once and move on either. No, it seems I have to learn and re-learn it all the time. ALL. THE. TIME. I can be willful and stubborn, obstinately refusing to move. I bury my head in the sand like a good little ostrich and pretend everything is okay. I try to force pieces into the puzzle because I think I know how the big picture is supposed to look or in an honest attempt to help another I manufacture all sorts of misplaced “solutions”, as if I have all the answers to all the questions because I am so very smart. Good intentions are sometimes ego driven.

      My level of pain is directly related to my level of willingness to just let go and truth be told, there are times when I am not so willing. It is then that I become the master of my own misery. Misery is a funny thing. Despair, resentments, fear…all awful ways to feel and yet the familiarity of it brings the warped sense of comfort derived from not having to make decisions; not having to make healthy changes; not having to be accountable. The hell I know is better than the hell I don’t sort of thinking that keeps one sick, psychically crippled, emotionally stunted and easily manipulated by the inner demons we all carry within. Sometimes I chase those ghosts but never for any length of time. Today, I have far too much to lose.

      It took me a long time to learn that “the hell we don’t know” is rarely a hell at all. It can be uncomfortable. It involves me doing things I don’t want to do, feeling emotions that I don’t want to feel and facing fears I don’t want to face but I have found that 100% of the time if I walk through it, my life becomes enriched, I become empowered and I learn and grow as a person. 

       Life does not adapt to me. In order to live authentically and happily, I must adapt to life. I must let go of what I think it should look like. I must let go of my expectations of what things should be which in hindsight always fall so short of what manifests. I must consciously make the decision on a day by day basis to get out of my own way. 

      Here’s the interesting thing: when I climb down out of my head and realize that the only, the ONLY events over which I have any control are my own behaviors and choices, it frees me from the prison I created with its bars of self-doubt, self-destruction and over-thinking and allows me to make the choices necessary to become an active participant in my own life. In giving up my fight to control my circumstances, I gain my freedom. In giving up the fears and thoughts of the worst of me, I begin to get to know the best of me. In letting go of the reins that control life, I gain the ability to control myself.

Corey Anne Rotella co-authored the book CNA Edge: Reflections from year one along with Bob Goddard and Hannah Hedges. It’s collection of essays from their blog CNA Edge: A Voice from the trenches of Long Term Care