We all have them. And when we allude it in this manner, "He has his moments", or "She has hers", we can mean it to go either way through the corridors of praise or annoyance.
We can be thankful for our moments. Though sometimes we prefer not to have them. Our animal friends only have a handful: fight or flight, not too hungry, fully sated or craving, cold to a shiver or hot to seek shade and shelter, desire to mate or to flee with and to protect the young. None too complicated. None too complex.
We, on the other hand, have a plethora of countless moments. Few so simple, all others so complicated. Most don't come to us singly, some a concoction of many. All at the same time. What do we make of this and what ought we to do?
Over time at particular points in our lives we've learned a thing or two about what moments to remember, what to discard, what many others we'd soon forget with dispatch at the time they happened. So many different moments we can set aside, except perhaps for the two I choose. Moments of sadness and those of joy, or happiness. All others, I think, are between those two, in many flavors or degrees of glee or distress.
The joke among high school buddies who later in life got together to reminisce about, "What ever happened to the nerd at school we used to harass and make fun of?" The nerd, to their shock and disbelief, is still described with a four letter adjective - he is now called Boss.
Many of us, all 99.9 %, do not have our lives turn to spectacularly high levels that nerd multi-millionaires had become but we had our share of sad moments that were inspirational, if not the impetus, for what we've become. Or, what inspired us to rise up rather than be down on ourselves.
Think back on all the moments that you remember. The happy ones were good and wonderful, yes! Good moments are what makes us to want more, better than what we've had so far. Sad moments make us more thoughtful of a loved one lost, perhaps, or a friend or co-worker down on his or her luck. Sad moments at a setback or failure hit us hard but because one believes that it is not the fall but how he or she gets back up is a lot more significant than a quick high-five over one success. More successes were had by those who viewed their failures with sadness at first. Then they turned it around to propel themselves to overcome. Soon they realized how so much more capable they were of achieving far and above the ones they failed at in the beginning.
Sad moments. Those I remember well. It was our first December in this country. We had just moved to Houston the previous month of November, having left New York and the family of my wife's sister and their parents, to start my job here. We had no car - I took the bus to and from work - because I didn't have enough credit history to get a car loan and no credit card company would approve my application to have one. We were new immigrants. All the happy moments of getting our Green Card to come here just months earlier, the flight, the awe of New York, were all forgotten then. We did not know anyone in the huge city and we had no friends, no relatives nearby. On Christmas Eve. I rented a car for the two days on the eve of and on Christmas Day. We went to the mall but all we did was sit and watch all the happy people around us. We didn't shop. We couldn't. There was not enough money. It was the saddest Christmas except that our entire family of four were together.
My wife had second thoughts about emigrating, almost regretting the whole idea, because it was she who wanted to venture out of the secured and predictable life, it was her original application to the U.S. Embassy. I resisted at first because we were happy and comfortable in our homeland. Why move when we had everything going so well, already seven years into a career I liked; with two young children ages five and six? I asked.
In the midst of those sad moments when even my wife was distressed by our situation, I reassured her that not only were we going to stay, we were going to make it and we will do well. I did not base it on any concrete guarantee or reassurance but knew we had to do the best we could and I had to work the hardest like I've never had before so no other Christmas like that ever happened again. Those sad moments made me discard every negative thought and held on to every thing that was right about our decision to come here. I held on to every word the Vice Consul said at the U.S. Embassy in Manila when we were interviewed early that year. He said we were a family America would welcome and he knew we will do well. If he had faith in us then I saw no reason why we couldn't believe that ourselves. Those sad moments on that December night did matter a lot more than any happy ones before and even later.
Fast forward to today from that December forty one years ago, I am happy to say that not only did we do all right we've achieved many-times-fold whatever were our expectations of the decision we made to come and settle here. So, even now that we are so blessed and happily living the dream, it was the saddest moments I often remember, to remind me of the fortunes we've had that countless others somewhere out there at this very moment are dreaming and seeking to have.
Remember that looking back at the last year of 2020 and looking into the New Year, think not so much of just the happy days. The sad moments that came to visit with us will leave lasting memories, whether we like them or not, so we might as well make use of them because like carbon atoms that nobody wants to have are what are added to iron to make steel. Look back to paragraphs earlier about the awkward kids who went on to do well. It was sad moments that gave them the steely resolve to slice through what others may have thought impossible to cut through.
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