THE FIRST,AND MORE RELIABLE METHOD IS NOT TO HAVE WHAT WE WANT BUT RATHER TO WANT AND APPRECIATE THAT WE HAVE!
“The other night,i was watching a television interview with Christopher Reeve,the actor who was thrown from a horse in 1994 and suffered a spinal cord injury which left him completely paralyzed from the neck down,requiring a mechanical ventilator even to breathe.When questioned by the interviewer about how he deal with the depression resulting from his disability, Reeve revealed that he had experienced a brief period of complete despair while in the intensive care unit of the hospital.He went on to say ,however,that these feelings of despair passed relatively quickly,and he now sincerely considered himself to be a ‘lucky guy’.He cited the blessings of loving wife and children but also spoke gratefully about the rapid advances of modern medicine(which he estimates will find a cure for spinal cord injury within the next decade),stating that if he had been hurt just a few years earlier,he probably would have died from his injuries.While describing the process of adjusting to his paralysis ,Reeve said that while his feeling of despair resolved rather quickly ,at first he was still troubled by intermittent pangs of jealously that could be triggered by another’s innocent passing remark such us ‘I ‘m just gonna run upstairs and get something.’In learning to deal with these feelings ,he said,’I realized that the only way to go through life is to look at your assets,to see what you can still do;in my case ,fortunately i didn’t have any brain injury ,so i still have a mind i can use’.Focusing on his resources in this manner ,Reeve has elected to use his mind to increase awareness and educate the public about spinal cord injury ,to help others,and has plans to continue speaking as well as to write and direct films.”THE ART OF HAPPINESS