Many of you know that I started writing One Boy’s Struggle: A Memoir as a therapeutic endeavor, as I had no intention of publishing it. Today it is a well known, widely read book and it has gone on to make me one of the top 3 authors for Infinity Publishing this last June, 2011. However, I would not have published One Boy’s Struggle: A Memoir, much less started my blog or created the ADHD social network ADDer World, if I had not been turned down for a certain job.
Long ago there was a job that I wanted so very much that I worked day and night to prove myself. I gave everything I had to show what I could do and finally the opportunity arrived, but I did not get it. All that I had worked to prove suddenly seemed worthless and I felt like I had not done enough and I wasn’t good enough. Even so, while I had worked to prove that I was capable of getting that job I had actually indeed proved something to someone else – I had proven to myself what I was truly capable of, beyond what I had ever expected. Not necessarily to anyone else, but, to who it mattered most: me.
Being turned down was perplexing because I had been highly praised for the work I did, even highly awarded, but it still had not been enough. After being turned down I could have shrunk away and become resentful and no longer feel the desire to strive. But something else happened, something better and it filled me with a new desire, a new awareness, which set me on a new course. And, because I had shown myself that I was a good spokesman, a good writer and an award-winning attention getter, these discoveries gave me the confidence to start my own blog, to publish my own books and to attract attention to the awareness of ADHD.
All I want to say here is that sometimes it seems like something bad has happened, but it may lead us to something better, something more profound and ultimately, fulfilling. Had I gotten that job I would have worked it night and day, given all of my free time to it as I had already been doing, and I may have never considered creating my blog, the ADHD social network ADDer World or writing and publishing my books!
Today, I believe I wasn’t supposed to get that job and the striving to get that job was not a wasted effort. Of course, this has been only one example, I could go into relationships as well, as I have in my books, but let’s just say I would not have my wonderful wife if past relationships had not ended for one reason or another.
It’s easy to get down, give up and give in, but sometimes when we look a little closer at what happened, we can find and take something good from the experience. We can discover what we learned, and we can take what seemed like a missed opportunity and turn it into a new opportunity with exciting, fresh possibilities. In other words, when something bad happens let’s take another look. We may be surprised at what we find and discover about ourselves. Instead of getting down, becoming upset, which is what we all initially naturally do, look around – what did we learn? What can we use from what we learned and how can we move forward? After all, we all must go on!
I have learned that good things sometimes come from what seem like bad things and sometimes getting turned-up comes from being turned-down. Heck – maybe that will be one of my future books: Getting turned-up from being turned-down! ©
Do you have an example of how you got turned-up from being turned-down, or, rather, how something good came from what seemed like something bad?
>Pass this on 🙂
Bryan
