Seeing Light At The End Of The Tunnel

The past year and a half has been extremely challenging for most of us.  Not only did we have to cope with a scary pandemic, stay at home lockdowns, social isolation, and an extended economic slowdown, there was been a chaotic political divide that further alienated us from many family members and friends.  It was difficult to resist succumbing to quarantine fatigue and become overwhelmed with dark emotions and thoughts.  However, as much as we would have liked to throw in the proverbial towel and stick our ostrich-like necks in the sand, we needed not to lose sight of the big picture.  As dark as any tunnel we’re in may appear, there is light on the other side.  I wrote this blog in the middle of this troubling situation.  Now as we begin to emerge from our travails, the following words are as timely as they were then.

Like many others around me, I used to play the game of “Ain’t It Awful.”  By bemoaning my fate, I felt entitled to indulge in destructive self-defeating behavior.  A temporary WTF attitude may give us short-lived gratification.  On both macro and micro levels, when things don’t go our way, we can derive pleasure in seeing people, places, and things around us go down in flames.  Like aficianados in a bullring arena or Roman spectators in a Colosseum, we may be tempted to root for the bull, not the matador, or the lions instead of the Christians. 

Caught up in our frustrations and disappointments, it is a cheap way out to want others punished or even killed to assuage our anger and disillusionment.  Throwing Molotov cocktails and/or setting things on fire may give us a temporary high, but we know that the piper will need to be paid sooner or later.  Victim mentality only goes so far.  We are only postponing our misery.

But if we look through a different set of glasses, not necessarily rose-colored, but at least free from shades of gloom, we can begin to see signs of hope.  One rule of life is that things are always changing.  Neither good fortune nor adversity lasts forever.  A wise biblical saying is “This too shall pass.”  No matter how large or small one’s grievances are, there is always a larger context for any event.  So many times, I thought that world was going to “hell in a handbasket” only to discover later that it was simply a low point in one of my life’s cycles. 

By dwelling on and extending my negative feelings, however seemingly appropriate at the time, I only made it more difficult to recover from whatever setbacks came my way.  When I’ve focused instead on seeing or imagining the light at the end of whatever tunnel I’m in, the sooner I can get there.  Now as conditions are improving and our options becoming more numerous, those of us who refused to give in to doom and gloom are in a much better shape to resume our activities.  This is the very definition of faith, something we need more than ever in today’s turbulent world. 

C 2021 David Cat Cohen