The Next Corner

Earnest Hemmingway said in “The Old Man and the Sea,” “Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.”  I thought his writing was beautiful.  The conclusion of the book was sad, but the journey was a delight.
But what he said is something I base my life now around.  Since the tumour and subsequent stroke, I know I am not what I was.  But to me that is not the important thing.  What matters to me is what I have not what I do not have.
I meet various ones who say “when I am right, I can do the things I should, until then I am biding my time.  That to me is not right.  For a start someone may always be the way they have become.  I ask myself does that mean there is no role for them or task that can be undertaken?  Personally, I do not think so.
Maybe what I was had greater variation of potential.  But to me losing some is not losing all.  A reassessment was needed for sure, but I find it matters to do a stock take of what I have -  not what I have lost.
I am thankful as things could have been, and are for some, much worse.  But no matter what position I find myself in I do believe the principle is the same.  I can concentrate on what I do have or wallow in what I have lost.
To me there is no point in the latter.  No one that I know of has ever achieved anything while stuck in the mud.  Achievement is only ever possible by rising above the mud.
I know I have had - and needed, help to achieve anything.  I could so easily focus my attention on what was, not what is.  What is, and is to be, is way more exciting to me, and the place I would rather be.