On Brick Walls and Detours

"The brick walls are there to show you how badly you want things." This is a quote from Randy Pausch which I recently quoted in my article "How Badly Do you want to work from Home?" You can read it at http://www.work-at-home-parenting.com/workfromhome.html. I've been thinking a lot about this quote because I slammed into a couple of walls in December. My computer contracted a virus and I lost dozens of files including two e-books in progress.

The feeling I had reminded me of an incident that happened when I was about 10 years old. I fell headfirst down a flight of stairs and had the wind knocked out of me. I remember rising to my feet...dazed. I tried to take a breath.

And couldn't.

That was pretty much how I felt with a destroyed computer and files that couldn't be replaced. For a while, I was unable to dust myself off and move happily onward. I had hit a brick wall. I sat motionless, kind of like a cartoon character with stars circling my head.

I never doubted that I would get up again, but at first I could only crawl.

Meanwhile, the New Year came, and everywhere I turned, there were articles on goal-setting and resolutions. And I was unable to focus.

On top of the computer crash, my daughter's two-year-old cat unexpectedly dropped dead. And I was caught up in tangles with health insurance that suddenly refused to cover my husband's medications.

The hard part is panicking about problems doesn't make them go away. But I was like that 10-year-old child that fell down the stairs, clutching my chest and trying to remember how to breathe.

I know the obstacles are there to make me stronger. As Jack Penn said, "One of the secrets of life is to make stepping stones out of stumbling blocks."

So with quite a few stepping stones under my feet, I am back to journey-to-wahm. I have found a detour around my brick walls. I am carving out new goals and formulating a plan to get from here to there. When New Year 2009 rolls around, I want to be able to be proud of what I've accomplished, to know with all my heart that I did the very best I could.

Starting today.