Tough Times DON'T Last. Tough Ones DO,

Tough Times DON'T Last.  Tough Ones DO.

It's Maundy Thursday.  In the NBA, the games are just too tough even for the hardened and battle-scarred stars.  The Houston Rockets endured a 20-game losing streak before they eventually notched a win.  The Miami Heats, which gradually clawed back towards the Eastern Conference's top tier, suddenly went on a 6-game losing streak but today, they finally notched that 'W'.  In the post-game media conference, Jimmy Butler summed it all in seven words: 'TOUGH TIMES DON'T LAST.  TOUGH TEAMS DO'.  Exactly, that's the truism.  The adversities in life don't last that long.  Even this pandemic shall pass too.  If you need to embed something deep within you, it is RESILIENCE because that will carry you through the adversarial phases in life.

Naysayers may rebut that if TOUGH TIMES DON'T LAST, can they just wait to pass out into the night ?  Sorry folks, if that is your mindset, yes you can let those TOUGH TIMES pass behind your back but no one loses more than YOU !  Because you thought problems just die a natural death ?  Because you thought problems just dissipate in thin air, leaving you unscathed ?  Frankly, for such a loathsome mindset, at the very least, you will end up scarred and bruised.  At worst, you'll end up black N blue.

If have that 'monkey behind our back', get that out of our back !  Over time, that passive and retrogressive habit [a.k.a. LAZIness] will get embedded as part of your persona.  Hate to say this but I pity people who are just too damn stubborn to correct themselves and be on the right path.  The pitfall lies wherein TOUGH TIMES are compared to typhoons, twisters & tsunamis.  But they are NOT apples-to-apples !  Just GET THAT MONKEY OUT OF YOUR BACK now.

Who claims that those dark clouds will continue to hover all day-long for the next four weeks ?  Sooner, the sun will shine from behind it.  Meanwhile, the $64 question is, would you still wait for that sun to breakout ?  I'm sorry, by then, there could have been opportunities which have already slipped past from you because you [wrongly] thought that BY DOING NOTHING, you would still end up the WINNER by DEFAULT ? Frankly, these are NOT the traits of a WINNER.  We just need to 'kick the tires', climb back in the swing of things till we end up as a WINNER !

If there's an overly used adjective for us to survive the tough times in our life, it is spelled R-E-S-I-L-I-E-N-C-E.  Being focused and NOT withdrawing from that acid test in life are just the starters.  Avoiding negative people is a must-do, else they are the very ones who will bring you down deeper.  And reaching out to your helpline, that one you must leverage.

Miami Heat's star, Jimmy Butler, is RESILIENCE-personified.  Not having the star players to complement him, for the past two years, he has single-handedly anchored the team, ending up two games short of the NBA Championship last year.  He just didn't quit even if he was there lunging on the sidelines, gasping for air within the few seconds he can leverage.

In the midst of this pandemic, these are very unprecedented times.  2.8 million deaths worldwide and still counting, we are too scared to compare this Covid-19 pandemic with that Spanish Flu pandemic that lasted for three years from 1918 to 1920.  Nevertheless, we cannot just ride on the coattails of this pandemic.  We gotta be the straw that stirs the proverbial drink.  We gotta ignite a dumpster fire to trigger that surge.  Run our narratives ✅