Compliance through Difficult times

My city has been living in the most extraordinary of times. We have experienced over 8000 aftershocks and several very large and devastating earthquakes over the last year. Of those, I'd estimate that I have stopped and noticed over five hundred.

Image: Quake Drum, McQueens Valley - 4 September 2010

With the first earthquake, we considered ourselves very lucky on the whole. Even badly-affected friends whose houses were severely damaged, were able to carry on with the support of family and friends. We all got on with our lives and became familiar with the aftershocks.

For me, the February quake was worse. No power or toilet at home for weeks, school and daycare closed for weeks. Water supply compromised. And the tragic loss of a dear friend.

I was very fortunate that family took care of my two oldest boys in a town two hours away, where they were able to attend school as well. My youngest boy stayed with me where I was hosted by my business partner and his wife.

Eventually my husband and I were re-united at home as a family and begin living life as 'new normal'.

During the upheaval, one of the first things to go was routine. People still talk about the how they simply forgot to cut hair, cut toe nails or go to the dentist.

For me, any semblance of routine around food and medication was immediately ruined. I think it may have been a month later I was visiting the doctor, tearful that I had forgotten to take my prescribed medication, and the doctor assured me that my circumstances were the same as dozens of other people he'd seen from Christchurch. And he was in Temuka, that little town two hours away!

Two things stand out for me about this:

“It's never too late to be who you might have been.”

George Eliot (English novelist 1819 - 1880)

And if I google long enough, I'll find the perfect quote to justify my insane timing. So I did:

“You win battles by knowing the enemy's timing, and using a timing which the enemy does not expect.”

Miyamoto Musashi
(Japanese Martial Arts master, one of the world's greatest swordsmen, 1584-1645)

At the time of the doctor's appointment, I resumed some medications, but not my injected insulin. More recently I went through the rigmarole of testing and adjusting my insulin, getting back into a routine, but whatever ongoing and other stress has happened, soon knock that out.

So this is all part of my story that has lead me to this place, this plan. What I can't do with medicine, I am doing with food.

My final motivational quote for today:

“Be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. Talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet. Make all your friends feel there is something in them. Look at the sunny side of everything. Think only of the best, work only for the best, and expect only the best. Be as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own. Forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future. Give everyone a smile. Spend so much time improving yourself that you have no time left to criticize others. Be too big for worry and too noble for anger.”

Christian D. Larsen
(American author of Applied Metaphysics for Beginners, 1874 – 1962) 

Image: quake.crowe.co.nz