There are so many people who become lost in life.
There are so many who “fall through the cracks”.
So many who lose their footing and simply can’t manage to do the things that allow them to participate in what we might call “usual or regular” daily life.
There are, I suppose, three main reasons why people become lost.
Of course there is the struggle and strife that can so easily go along with chemistry.
There are many people who fight to stay balanced.
Internal struggles that they are not able to control and have little if any responsibility for are an enormous problem for so many.
We give these struggles names.
We call them “illnesses and disorders” but the truth is, regardless of the name we give them, for so many just feeling comfortable and at ease as they go through life is very difficult.
Sometimes medication helps, but not always.
Some don’t get the medicine they need.
Some are never diagnosed.
Some don’t take the medicine and many can’t afford it.
Sometimes therapy is the answer to making life easier but good therapists are in short supply or in many places and cases, far too expensive for most.
Besides chemistry, money and grief are, I fear, the main reasons why so many people come apart.
Money worries can be horrible. Money can control so much of our happiness, our needs, our wants and our misery.
Money’s pull is strong.
It’s difficult to live in the developed world and not feel money’s power. It’s impossible to live in the rest of the world and not see it’s need.
Unaddressed grief is an enormous problem. It’s an issue we do so little about.
There are so many who have suffered a loss in their lives who never recovered.
Grief un-dealt with or unresolved does not go away.
It festers and grows until it controls us.
It can be consuming and debilitating and can make it impossible to go on or go forward.
There are so many places where we can get “stuck” with grief.
For some it’s retirement.
While we celebrate the end of a career with parties and congratulations, many who have “no more work to do”, simply drift away and become lost at the feeling of being without purpose, unimportant or useless.
What do I do now?
What’s to become of me and what am I worth? Are questions that haunt so many after they have no job, no work, no worth and no purpose.
Separation, divorce or a love gone cold are causes of pain and hurt that many people never get over.
“I loved her and she left me.”
“I loved him and he did not love me back.”
“I committed and he did not.”
“I gave my heart and soul to her and she tired of me.”
Often, while our friends and families tell us we are better off without him or her, we may be left broken and sad to the point of never again being able to feel whole.
Many never recover from the loss of the relationship and love gone.
And of course death: it comes to our loved ones, our family members, our friends and we are left alone, in shock and devastated.
For so many the death of someone they loved is so powerful, so overwhelming and so destroying to their purpose, their soul, their happiness and their future that living life with any meaning and happiness simply stops.
They never got over the massive shock and pain of their loved one’s death and they are never able to adjust and manage again.
Some of these people you see as you walk down the city streets. Their loss of work, loss of love or devastation because of death has left them on the sidewalk, homeless.
Some sit next to you on the bus, the train or at work. Some you see at the movies or the park. They appear to be ok but they are but a shell of their former self.
Grief does not heal or go away with time. It needs a response and it needs to be cared for.
If you know someone who has lost a job, lost love in life or a loved one from death, offer them some compassion, some kindness and some support by trying to understand that for so many, the ability to live a happy, full, hopeful life, ended the day that grief took hold of them.
They are only a beginning and a scratch at the surface but I have enclosed a link to some film clips, 7 of them deal with grief.
I hope they help.
If the link is stubborn, simply go to YouTube and put in john d martin. You will be taken to the symbol of the vine. You may find what you or someone you know needs there.