Dear StillTrying -

Hi, I'm glad you are here. As much as we may regret the circumstances.

I hear you on the issue of total defeat, loud and clear. But, please bear in mind a concept that tends to play out in the end: every impossible problem is just the solution to another problem. At the ultimate extreme, a black whole in one universe may be the big bang in the next.

In our own lives, the best we can do is look upon ourselves with love and kindness, and make our choices are available, based on what we have in front of us, as opposed to our long-held expectations. Then we find the best fit for what we know have to work with, and who we are - right now - is the solution for that other question: the perfect person our optimal (as opposed to ideal) choice of lifestyle would seek out, assuming it had a search committee.

The other way to look at the whole thing is that lasting happiness can never be dependent upon conditions, 'cause the one thing conditions do is change.

That said, it's true I didn't have to deal with this as a young man. And the suffering of sensing that one has been cheated out of life must be overwhelming.

As a 48 year old bankruptcy attorney with a wife and two young boys, I had my own - and other's - set(s) of expectations to deal with. And walking away from a career I had spent 24 years developing wasn't easy. For me, things began to change once I got involved with the meditation community, which happened to be good sized where I lived at the time. Although I had not turned a profit in it since becoming ill, I had been despirately clinging to my professional "identity." Then one day at my desk, it just hit me: giving up my identity as a lawyer meant nothing more than dropping a pre-existing set of expectations that were really nothing more than atttachments to old things that used to make me happy, but no longer did. At which point, I could freely and happily begin the process of unwinding my law practice.

Karen Horney, one of the great social psychologists of the mid-20th Century, defined neurosis as the pattern of holding onto conditioned responses, once stimulous had ceased. And don't worry, I'm not calling you neurotic! It's just what we all face when confronted with big changes.

ALL that said, I truly believe that treating ourselves - as we are - with love and kindness most always be our fundamental place of orientation. May you be happy.

Mike