What happens when someone has built up a lot of bad habits for most of their life? In my case, I was able to get by until a few years ago. That’s when a series of painful events occurred and showed me just how much I needed to change. And I did, but only after spending most of my free time for months after those events feeling sad, angry, and defeated. That was when I first heard the Weird Al song “Skipper Dan” and related strongly to the line “Now my hopes have all vanished and my dreams have all died.” I can enjoy the song now but at that time it was heartbreaking since I felt like I’d be stuck in that rough place for the rest of my life.
Fortunately, I’ve long since moved past that season and my current situation continues to get better all the time. Since I often have to learn things the hard way, I think that that difficult season was necessary. Much of what happened during that time came about because of habits and tendencies I’d practiced for many years. Although I often got into trouble through my actions, I hadn’t yet dug myself deep enough to commit to some major changes. Once I did, it became obvious that much of what I’d done for years had to go and that I needed to do a lot of things way differently.
Although I strongly prefer to make gradual changes, sometimes I need a hard reset. Something that’ll shake me to my core and force me to take a long, hard look at my life. I get the feeling that I’d have gotten into even more trouble later on down the road if I hadn’t heeded that wake-up call and started making changes when I did. So, although that time was incredibly difficult, I’m sure it was downright gentle compared to what would have happened if I’d have continued down that path. Although it can still be difficult to think back to all the pain I felt during that difficult season, I’ll always be grateful for the lessons I learned from it. That experience taught me that sometimes things have to fall apart before they can fall into place. Even when it felt like my life was in pieces, I was still able to pick up those pieces one by one and reassemble them into something new, different, and beautiful.