Tong Family

Had a long conversation with a close friend. What a mess. Sometimes all you can do is empathize.

There comes a time someone hits a low point and then something happens. It is hard to see. The psych books talk quite a bit about it. But everyone hits it at the different time. Doesn’t matter what the loss is. Or how long ago it was. Seems like at every age, the wounds are there.

What’s sad is to see  the huge attribution errors. When someone tends to make a mistake about who the blame falls on. If someone does something bad, there is a huge tendency to try to “blame the victim.” The classic, “it is your fault, since you were mean to me”, or “she made me do it.” Whether you are a complete narcisstic (e.g., so self-centered because of deep early injuries) or whether you are just trying to protect yourself in a business deal. It happens all the time. But it is no fun to be the target.

Somehow the books and other folks who have been through it say, you turn around and then optimism returns. It is one of those things that is hard to see. Robert Bly and many folks talk about it optimistically only because they’ve seen the other side. It reminds me so much of teaching myself to ski. You can know intellectually that just put your skis down, *lean over them to right, they will catch you*, it is impossible to believe. It takes about 10,000x more courage to do it with your heart and is even harder to watch someone do it.

So for my close friend, here is to the future, with family, friends and partners, it is amazing what you can survive. The worst financial crisis ever. The worst betrayals ever. Trust lost. Jobs lost. Futures lost. If you are in this state then what’s the anthem. Well reaching back to 2006 appropriately, I somehow missed Lifehouse. What a great group. So here is to the unknown future. I just love You and Me

And there is Fort Minor once again with its anthem to people really making it happen. Kind of mind blowing it had 10M views so far of Remember the Name