Word for today: Stuck I work in the insurance industry. While I spend a significant amount of time on the sales end of the picture, the single most important place I feel I spend my time is in recovery. When my clients suffer a loss, as much as possible I handle their claim within the confines of my office because it speeds up the process and helps them move forward toward repair of structures and property quickly and efficiently. Often the job is beyond the scope of my expertise and authority and I have to pass the entire loss over to the claim department for handing. However on smaller more manageable losses I prefer to settle with a policyholder directly. I like it when they get their check directly from my hand, it solidifies our relationship and reminds them that I am there for both the sale and for the follow through. I am a good neighbor, I want them to know they are in good hands. Yesterday one of my elderly clients came into the office with additional invoices from Superstorm Sandy. It is like this sometimes, smaller parts of the larger claim arrive in warmer weather when the repairs are easier to make and people have vacation time to manage details. She apologized to me for the delay in getting me the proper documentation, I assured her she was not the only one still trying to close out payments from last fall. We began a casual conversation about the difficulties in finding reliable contractors, in the change in weather patterns. Then she remarked that she’d been feeling unmotivated to submit receipts to me because she worried she may just have to do it all over again later this summer if another storm arrives. Why not wait on everything until the fall and then it would all be behind us? We have after all had 2 major hurricane related events in two years...who is to say there may not be a third? We both shuddered to think of the possibility and agreed that thought was better left unsaid, though we could not take back the words that were out there, as if speaking them somehow may make them come to life. My comment to her was this: It’s easy to get stuck in the worry of it all and wait for the next bad thing to happen, never moving forward with the act of living. But we owe her money for repairs and I want to pay her fairly and promptly. It is possible another storm may arrive. However if you look at the larger picture, at decades of weather patterns, it is far more probable that several years- dare I even say decades- -will pass before another Sandy arrives and creates damage like this past fall. The odds are in our favor, she should not wait and should make the necessary repairs and replacements. It is right to move on. I’ve been stuck in this emotional place myself, heck, I’m stuck there now on several issues. I wonder if I should make the emotional or physical repairs to myself because I’m just going to have another bigger problem anyway, so why not wait for the larger shoe to drop? Why exercise and eat right when I’m eventually going to die anyway? What is the point in taking care of myself when life throws me one curve ball after another and I just end up with a newer bigger lump on my head than the one I had before? I’ve given into this folly time and again. It’s a defeatist attitude, it is self sabotage and it robs me of all the joy in my heart. It speaks through a voice that lies- because while I am in fact going to die one day- we all will- it’s not about the final end game. It’s about who I am and what I have to get done while I am here that matters. Dwelling in the negative places- staying stuck in old patterns and thinking is the Devil’s work. It diverts purpose toward nothingness. It is perhaps the only sin I can fathom may be even slightly unforgivable because it tells us who we are to be and what we were sent here to accomplish in this world is unimportant. Our presence does not matter, we have nothing to give. If I believe the devil in those words they become true. If I stand against them they are hollow whispers borne away with the wind. I can choose to believe in nothing, or believe in everything. God made day and night in part I think because God knew we would need to start everything over and over again frequently. “How” I imagine God said one day during the act of creation “Can I give them a way to push the reset button when it’s all gone terribly wrong? What can I construct in this new universe that allows them to see things anew without recreating them myself every single time they do something that defeats them or crushes their dreams?” And so God made the day and the night so that we can remind ourselves again and again that there is a new chance to fix an old problem. Tomorrow is another day to tackle the hard questions again. Sleep and rest your soul. When you wake up a lot of things that seemed frightening or downright impossible may present new solutions in the light of a new day. Do not give up hope. Fix the places that are broken promptly, remain endlessly optimistic that storms are not regular events, although they do arrive occasionally with great force and destruction. Every day is a new chance to unstick ourselves, a chance to move forward. When hard days do arrive, ask for help in recovering. There is nothing we are meant to do more here on earth than help and support each other when personal destruction arrives. In fact, that may be the single biggest reason to fix your own house: because your neighbor may need your help to repair theirs when the dark days come knocking at the front door. Be ready to be present for them as the Good God intended.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Jun 2013 13:00:00 +0000
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