Thought Provoking Question #8

     “We born dyin'... But you ask a man

         an' he talk like he gonna live forevah.” 

                                                            ― Walter Mosley,

                                                                                                        The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey                                                                 

The Importance of Miracles, Small Victories, and Playing the Lotto 

There is this wonderful scene in the story Cinderella where she is deep in a crying fit of despair. She is cleaning the house where she lives with her mean stepmother. Both her evil stepmother and sisters have left for the grand ball and left Cinderella behind to clean. There she is wailing, slaving, and sobbing. "All is lost," she cries, "all is hopeless," she sobs, when out of thin air appears the good fairy godmother. Cinderella, in awful anguish, tears and apparent hopelessness, approaches the fairy godmother and says: "Oh fairy godmother, oh fairy godmother all is lost, all is hopeless, all is doomed," to which fairy godmother replies: "Now Cinderella, you don’t believe that, or I couldn’t be here!" I always knew Walt Disney was a cool dude as my college students like to say, but the story of Cinderella provides poignant commentary on one of life’s great lessons. That powerful message is the need for all of us to keep a small special space in each of us for gentle miracles, for small victories, and for our humanity to at least flicker with the hope of better tomorrows. Clearly Cinderella had that "special space" within her or she would have never seen her fairy godmother to begin with. You see, Cinderella believed in miracles.  

One of the great challenges for anyone, who has lost a loved one, is to overcome the deep gallows of despair that a major loss can bring. One of the great challenges of the many losses we all must face each and every day of our lives, is the need to move on with our lives in meaningful ways. Whether it be loss of life, loss of love, loss of employment, loss of home, or loss of a country--such as millions of refugees world-wide experience each year--our chief task is to regroup, regain a toe-hold back in life and to rekindle our flicker of belief in hope and miracles. Holidays have a way of seemingly snuffing out our "flicker of hope and belief" in miracles. There is a fairy godmother, fairy godfather, cosmic force, or god if you will--call it what you may-- which is out there, just waiting for each of us to acknowledge, thus bridging that powerful lightening-like connection from hope to happening and wish to reality!  

A while back I was talking with an elderly friend of mine who is a regular player of the lottery back east. I asked him one day to take the lottery slip he was holding and read the fine print at the bottom. As he held the ticket up to a strong light and put on his glasses he read aloud: "The New York State Lottery Commission wishes to inform the holder of this ticket that their chances of winning the lotto are one in a little over 3.5 million" or words to that effect. Basically what they are saying is your chances of winning are akin to finding a snowball in hell! So why do people play games of chance when they know that the odds are stacked so heavily against them? We do so because we have within each of us a special place for miracles, hope, and small victories. And as my elderly optimistic friend said: "Well someone has got to win it!" What it comes down to sometimes, is seeing is not believing, but rather, believing IS seeing.  

Life may sometimes tax our will and challenge our hope. The many burdens in life may also smother in each of us, that burning beacon of light into a flickering amber of despair, if we let it. If we don’t nurture this flame, and secure this special space for miracles in ourselves, we run the danger of losing our confidence, losing our hope, and losing our belief in winning at the game of life.  

So what can each of us do to rekindle, preserve, and enhance that special space in each of us? You start by acknowledging you can win. You start by accepting the fact you have just as much of a chance of winning as anyone else and that you deserve to win as much as anyone else. Go out and buy a lotto ticket, buy some holiday cheer for others. Give of yourself to make miracles happen in other people’s lives. Donate your time and your money to good causes that make miracles happen in the lives of other people. Change your rut and your strut! Nurture yourself with uplifting reading and make the changes in your lifestyle that encourages good health and good cheer. Take a healthy walk and enjoy the beauty that abounds us all. Keep a journal and write in it the good things that you see each day. Be sure to look for the good and you will in fact see the good. Toast the moment and toast the wonderment of each day.  

So remember to take a chance on life, make a wager on love, take some risks and make an educated and calculated decision to live your life fully not only during life but each and every day. As the writer Frank Scully observed: "Why not go out on a limb? Isn't that where the fruit is?" Like small change we count our victories, one by one. And as in fairy tales and miracles, they lived happily ever after.  

[This article is by Dr. J. Davis Mannino and originally appeared in the community newspaper We The People. All Rights Reserved by the author.]