Community Chat

[ThinkingOutLoud]

I heard this story some years ago and thought I'd share in case it helps anyone.

Welcome to Holland
Written by Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this…

When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum, the Michelangelo David, the gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.”

“Holland?!” you say. “What do you mean, Holland?” I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.

But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to some horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.

So you must go out and buy a new guidebook. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It’s just a different place. It’s slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around, and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills, Holland has tulips, Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life you will say, “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.”

The pain of that will never, ever, go away, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss.

But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.

[NEvans2]

My life has not always been a bed of roses. But I am happy. I have always been an optimist. Were there things I should have done differently? Yes. I have always believed that every experience you have, whether good or bad, makes you the person you are.

[Foxxee]

I'm not a pessimist or optimist.  I'm a realist. I'm not sure how anyone can be happy under the conditions we have been living.  

[woman63]

@ThinkingOutLoud   Thank you for posting this poignant piece. It so puts things in perspective. 

I'm trying to give you a heart but can't remember how. Just know this really touched me. 

[Jordan2]

For anyone that has found happiness I'm glad for you. I don't know if I necessarily agree that you choose joy. I think happiness is tied to your upbringing, how you were raised, events in your childhood. I don't think money can buy you happiness, but it can greatly alter your life for the better. Some people haven't gotten the breaks in life that maybe others have. I know I can't blame others for my unhappiness, the problem lies within me. 

[Teddixat]

I try to live my life by realizing that tomorrow is promised to no one.  At any time life can throw you a curve and you have no control.  Enjoying every day knowing it is really all we have, helps keep me grounded and appreciative of what I have.   I have friends to whom life has not been kind such as a terminal health diagnosis or loss of everything from fires or other disasters.   There is only so much we can control.  We should pay attention to our pets who live in the moment.  They don't worry about the next day - they live for that moment and when they get sick, they accept their fate.  I'm not saying it's easy to do but it's something to think about - and the older I get and realize that the years ahead (if I get lucky enough to live them), are fewer and fewer, so enjoy the moment because all the bad things happening around us are beyond our control.

[KathyM23]

I would say that I was a generally happy person and I always felt lucky and that things would be OK and turn out the way they were supposed to.  Had disappointments, health issues and problems in my life as we all have, but many good things too.  I would say there have been more ups than downs and the good has definitely outweighed the bad.

But since the pandemic with the shutdowns and isolation and the other issues affecting our lives over which although we would like to change, we have no control, I will have to say I am less happy now than I have ever been.  Aging issues, worry about the direction things are going, health issues and so forth.  And feeling this way is hard for me to deal with as it goes against my nature.  

[kitcat51]

Sometimes yes, sometimes no but being happy isn't what's important to me...what's important is doing the right thing no matter what.

[Teddixat]

@Jordan2    I don't diminish your experiences and how they may have affected you - and if I get  down, as we all do at some time, I look at people who have suffered real adversities in their lives and found the strength and courage to move on and make the best of it , even doing great things,  and I take a step back and say to myself, I have nothing to complain about.   There are a lot of wealthy unhappy people.   Money cannot buy happiness, it just gives you more options but not necessarily are they happier than just regular folks who have day to day struggles.  There is a saying that is acliche, and cliches are cliches because they are true "if you have you're health. You have everything".  I know people who are wealthy with serious health challenges who would trade their wealth for their health.

[06greatwife]

This past Saturday a young woman named Jane Marczewski died after a four year battle with breast cancer. She was a singer who appeared last year on America's Got Talent. She called herself Nightbirde and sang a song on the show she had written entitled "It's Ok". Google it...it's a beautiful song. During her conversation with the judges, she made a very profound statement which has caused me to think about my own happiness. She said "You can't wait until life isn't hard before you decide to be happy". Speaking for myself I know that I have wasted many years not being happy. For years I have thought to myself that if this or that would just happen, I would be happy. Someone once said that the heaviest burdens we carry are the thoughts in our heads. I truly have many good things in my life and am blessed in many ways. I need to let thoughts of these many good things overcome my mind when the thoughts of the bad and hard things in this life bring me down. A lot of times for me that is easier said than done, but that is what I am working on.