The time has come the Walrus said to speak of many things, of ships and shoes and sealing wax and of cabbages and kings......Always for some unknown reason my favorite quotation, I guess it has become relevant now as I have to establish whether I am a cabbage or a king.
After looking at the above quotation I thought of a couple of others I had seen recently on the Lawyers with Depression website, a site I discovered while writing the early stages of my blog and located at http://lawyerswithdepression.wordpress.com
This a great site and has provided me with many insights I did not have before and I am sure would help anyone that may be suffering from or recovering from depression. In addition there were two quotations that really struck a chord with me
Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are your own fears.
-Rudyard Kipling
and
Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.
-C.S. Lewis
I will not write about these now as given the present circumstances they really have gotten me thinking.
Although I was in court this morning dealing with the dramas of the Small Claims Court, a honeymoon gone wrong, and truck towing charges. The first a bit of fun as my client's went on their honeymoon, arrived at the airport and found no tickets despite pre paying and booking their flight 6 months before. After using the balance of their holiday money to purchase new tickets to get to the Caribbean they took off to enjoy the beginning of their marriage. I can only imagine the discussion my client's new wife had with him on the plane as it was he who had made the travel arrangements. Then they arrived on the island, hopefully after marital bliss had been re-established, and left the gate only to find that the all inclusive resort he had booked was closed for renovations. They were sent to another resort, admittedly just as good but hours away from where they wanted to be to enjoy their honeymoon. As compensation they were offered a room free if they returned to the islands at their own expense.
This can only be described as a Judge Judy case, I think even the Judge was enjoying himself at the conference discussing the matter with the counsel for the travel agent and the resort as his first questions to counsel were, are you married, did you go on a honeymoon and what would have been your wife's reaction to all this. His next question was how much are you going to kick in to settle this matter. After some hesitation and a reminder from me somewhat facetiously that if this matter was in the US the claim would be for 10 million not 10 thousand, we came to a settlement in excess of the cost of the overall trip and my newlyweds left happy, their confidence in the justice system renewed and hopefully a husband off the hook or at least with a comeback line in years to come when his wife undoubtedly recalls his somewhat dubious ability to book a holiday.
I outlined the above because sometimes I feel that the limits of a paralegal's practice are not worth it and just the drudgery of Sesame Street law, however it is matters like this, whether humorous or not, that again bring to my attention that even little matters that may not mean life or death to the parties involved are still important and worth the fight.
A new day and paperwork lies ahead, its pouring rain so it at least it takes the sting out of sitting in my dungeon shuffling paper. I have been thinking of the two quotations mentioned earlier, they are of course both true and of course relate directly to getting through a depression. The problem I think when considering them is the application. The first about fear, well it is very accurate, fear basically tells you that you are going to fail before you start so why bother, it not only tells you that you are going to fail but more importantly that there is no way you can win. This of course robs you of hope and as I mentioned earlier,it is this loss of hope that is the greatest factor in depression. You lose hope in little things, then the big things, then in everything and that is when the despair begins. So this quote is true obviously but can it help by knowing it, I think so, if it is one of those factors you consider in everything, in other words in terms of my own application of the intent of the thought, every time I feel the fear I must say its a lie, a challenge untried is a potential victory lost because to stop is to be paralyzed and nothing changes or gets achieved. To quote the movie Dune "fear is the mind killer", not such an auspicious author but you sci fi fans get the point.
If dear reader you have trudged through these missives from the beginning you may understand how this point applies to me, the missed opportunities in life and relationships due to my fear of compromising my original plan and the missed opportunity to avoid the depression itself because I was afraid to admit my problems and seek help. Thus in considering the quotation it is not only very true it is in many ways a guide or instruction that can help get you through your recovery, get you through the depression and as my case and present circumstances, help you move on. So if you are afraid to ask for help, do it, if you are afraid to ask a question or put yourself on the line, do it and if you are afraid to face a problem and take action, as I am at present, rack em up and go for it, you may lose, but you would do that if you don't try so technically you cannot be any worse off that you would be if you didn't even try.
As to the second quote, its also true, but I must admit a bit self serving, not that it should be, just that practically speaking it will be, not through any fault of yours or any flaw in the inherent truth of the statement but in the fact that given the general lack of understanding and acceptance of depression, very few people if any will understand what it takes to face this unseen killer. I would like to tell you that if you do everything right in dealing with depression that when you come out of it or start to come out of it people will see the strength of character and force of will it took to survive and live, that they will acknowledge your achievement for the survival alone. Unfortunately unlike the person that learns to walk again after being injured or the person that battles back from cancer the scars that depression leaves are not battle scars of a victory won, or the scars that tell the story of your battle, rather they are found in the destruction of your life and the pain you have caused others. So dear reader the perception of those around you and those that judge you is not of the battle you have won but the destruction you have caused, not the courage you have shown but the lack of character you exhibited. Sounds pretty bleak huh, but its not, the more I thought about it I realized that in addition to the few people that will understand, mostly those that have gone through it themselves or something similar, you and in my case I know the courage and plodding determiation it took to survive.
Now in my circumstances with the up coming hearing on my character, I cannot stand up and say I have good character because I am here, I survived, realized the pain I caused and have taken steps to redeem myself and make amends. I think dear reader we know that would go over like a lead balloon, however, I can know it, I can accept in myself that I can face any challenge and survive, I have the depth of spirit and character that allowed me, in real terms face death even at my own hand and come back. I have faced those that would judge me, damn me, hate me or ridicule me, listened, accepted and moved on and tried to make a good life for myself and those around me. Thus the strength in this quote or thought is not found in the hope that others will know or understand the virtue or strength of character in your survival but that you know it, accept it, and believe it. I think that if I can accept that in myself and really believe it then facing those that don't understand, or believe or in fact believe the opposite, will be made easier. So dear reader the strength given by the quote is not in its acceptance by those around us but in our ability to accept it in ourselves.
A bit philosophical for a rainy day, but here endeth the lesson, I hope I learned something.
