“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”-Mike Tyson
The greatest coaches and managers across all sports are able to make adjustments. These coaches and managers will study hours of film and spend additional hours putting in a game plan. It’s game day and all hell has broken loose. The plan isn’t working. The opponent has found a hole in your defense and is exploiting it. The offense can’t score, let alone gain any ground. What does the coaching staff do?
Make adjustments, that’s what the coaching staff does. The team gets together at halftime and tweaks the plan. The ability to adapt to an unplanned situation could mean the difference between a coach hoisting a championship trophy or being unemployed at season’s end.
Adaptability is a necessary skill in life. Adaptability is the difference between moving forward or staying stuck in an unfavorable situation. How do you adapt when a once solid relationship falls apart? What do you do when your financial bottom line changes? How do you handle a life-altering diagnosis? A crisis of faith?
Adaptation.
I have chronicled many of my life’s changes and struggles from my mental and physical health to my current situation, which is my impending divorce. It is still early in the divorce process, and I know the process has to play out. However, I never thought I would be making this particular “midlife adjustment.” This 1275 square foot home looks empty and sounds very cavernous, especially when the dogs bark. However, I am making the best of the situation, and adjusting my financial lifestyle. I have never been a man of means, but I have found some fat that needs to be trimmed.
Adapting to life’s changes doesn’t mean you have to stop enjoying your life. This lesson I learned after my Celiac disease diagnosis. I had to be diligent in reading food labels and look out for the words”wheat,” “barley,” and “rye.” I have since learned there are derivatives of these products as well. I would often lament over the food I couldn’t have, but I learned to enjoy a bevy of new foods. Truth be told, many of the gluten-filled foods weren’t that good for me in the first place. If I can change my eating habits at thirty-nine, I can make adjustments from a divorce at forty-one.
I know it sounds cliche, but I am getting through this process one day at a time. It’s just me, the two dogs, the guinea pig, and the turtle. I must continue to take care of my physical and mental health in this situation, as the stress of all this has affected my body. My wife and I have told our immediate families, but there has not been a widespread announcement, which will come shortly. Part of me wants to get it out there and into the open, but another part of me doesn’t want the barrage of questions and the looks of judgments from others.
This looming divorce was never in the game plan. In the back of your mind, you always ask the “What if” questions of life, but you never see it coming. This was the punch in the mouth I did not expect, but I am clearing out the cobwebs. I have had my good days and the bad days that make you want to dig a hole and stay there, but I know I must persist. I will be fine. A long period of adjustment is coming, but I am willing to do the work and improve myself.
Triumphant In Christ 