All I Can, With All I Have...I spend a lot of time with a "woe is me" mentality in my head. I'm not sure why, it just seems to creep into my thoughts little by little, day after day. It wears me down until I reach a state of "what am I doing with my life? why am I even here? why am I not doing more?"
The excuses soon follow inside my skull full of spinning thoughts. "I'm not smart enough, I'm too old, I'm too lazy, it's too hard to just 'get by' that I can't possibly do anything more than this..."
As usually happens, these excuses are vaporized at some point when life extends a friendly hand which slaps me with a wake up call that really, life is NOT so bad after all and truly, many of us have much more to be thankful for than we realize. A few days ago, after a long day in the office from which I was dragging myself home via the subway, I noticed a well-dressed man in front of me on the platform. He was like many other New Yorkers I see day after day save for one notable difference - his left jacket sleeve was tucked back inside itself. It was an unneeded bit of cloth for someone missing their left arm.
I unconsciously scratched the bridge of my nose with my left hand while my right hand continued to hold the book I was reading. Such a small thing to scratch my nose so easily, yet such a big thing... As the man waited for his train, he bent over and placed a small, fancy shopping bag containing some sort of gift between his thighs to hold it. As I continued to walk toward him to take up my spot on the platform, he reached for the metro card he held in his mouth. His right arm sported a crisp, white cuff on a well-tailored blue shirt adorned with a silver cufflink. It was tailored because his right arm ended at the elbow where a small crab-like appendage emerged at a reverse-right angle, similar to a baby-bird's wing bent out and back.
The man struggled, half-bent over, maintaining the gift bag between his thighs as he fumbled near his hip for several minutes. He was returning the small, thin metro card to his pants pocket with two, odd-shaped finger-pincers that didn't cooperate due to their opposing direction away from his body. Finally, the card was painstakingly returned to its home and the man proceeded to one of the benches in the middle of the platform. I felt rude for watching, yet I couldn't help but soak in how much this person must go through, day after day while I create my excuses that life is too hard for me to do anything more with it...
All the cliches came to mind, "there's always someone worse off, don't stare, etc. etc." but the reality is, the more I looked the more I was inspired to get off of my pitiful attitude train and to start being thankful and grateful.
He let a laptop bag slide off his shoulder onto the bench as my inspired heart wept quietly for his bravery to just be out here, taking on life despite the difficulties and oceans of frustrations he must endure with his condition. He struggled with a zipper on the bag for a bit, using his teeth to try and pull it open. Two homeless men complete (with their arms, hands and fingers fully in tact) sat on either side of the man's bag, watching but not offering to help. Did they have any of the same thoughts? Did they also realize how much more they had to be thankful as they gazed upon the man's difficulty with simple task. For several painstaking minutes, he attempted to stuff an uncooperative black windbreaker into the bag using just his mouth. It seemed that everyone on the platform was furtively watching like me, but no one offered to help. It seemed that with so many people staring, he must have been able to feel the eyes upon him. Or was he numb to this, accepting it as he accepted his situation and was clearly not going to let anything get in his way. He was here to live and enjoy the most normal life he could. That was clearly stated by everything from his cuff link to his metro card in his pocket to his gift bag.
I wanted to just walk over and help him with that damn jacket that wasn't going into the bag. Oddly, it felt as if it would be some sort of an insult to walk up and say, "hello sir, could I help you out with that?" I just stayed frozen in place because mentally it seemed there was no way to not sound totally wrong: "...because I've got two perfect arms, two perfect hands, and ten wonderful fingers and you don't?" - exactly NOT what I was thinking. What I actually thinking was, "life is a cruel bitch for giving you this situation and I don't know why some of us are more fortunate. As a thank you for inspiring me, I would love to return the favor and help you with that jacket."
No, I just stood there, saying nothing while gratitude for my own situation welled up inside. I needed to write about this with the ten fingers that I am so blessed with. At least I still had my big nose and droopy eyes as a fallback for something to complain about mentally. My train arrived and I stepped in while the man continued trying to stuff the windbreaker into his bag with his mouth while the homeless people and everyone else looked on. Inside the train, I looked up from my book to avoid running into any current passengers. I was now face to face with a man who appeared to have lost half of his. From his left eye, down the side of his nose, diagonally across his mouth to the center of his chin ran a deep wide scar/welding of plastic surgery. His right forehead, eye, cheek and chin were nearly concave in contrast to his "normal" left side. Instead of being straight ahead, his nose and right eye were facing off in the direction of the collapsed sphere of his head. What on earth could have caused such a disconfiguration: bomb blast, shark bite, car crash, industrial accident, machetee fight? It didn't matter. Here he was, smiling away, wearing a suit, working on a blackberry like everyone else. Everything about him, his posture, his smile, his clothing, and especially his radiance said, "hey, I'm perfectly fine...and I don't have time to feel sorry for myself, life is too short for that..."
My own large nose and droopy eyes and those lifelong ugly moles on my face were suddenly a non-issue. When I got home, I took a long look in the mirror. It's by no means a pretty sight to see but it's all there. I gently touch the face I have with the fingers on the hands on the arms I have. I make a mental note: "stop making excuses for not being able to do what you wish in life because you don't have enough of something."
Instead, like the two people I saw tonight who are out there in life and going strong despite what most would consider debilitating hardships, I vowed to stop making excuses, to stop bringing myself down for one reason or another and that each day I would do all I can with all I have.
Labels: inspired