The abrupt disappearance of flight MH370 on Saturday, March 8, has created a wall of pain around families as they await word of their loved ones. It is perhaps the waiting that’s hardest – that interval when one doesn’t know exactly what happened, and the imagination is free to run wild.
Such circumstances beg one question: what would you do if a family member or someone dear to your heart suddenly disappeared?
Life clearly doesn’t come with an instruction manual. So many circumstances arise – debt, illness, natural disaster, fire, crime, loss, fame, wealth, and death – that knock your world off kilter and leave you feeling stunned. The next step seems impossible to find, much less take. You have to fumble in the dark until a ray of light presents itself.
Some people characterize hardship as a test of faith. By this they mean that life’s lowest points help define your loyalty to God (or another religious being). You’re supposed to pray when driven to your knees, an act some people are swift to take. Others choose to blame God for the circumstances in which they find themselves.
Those who don’t subscribe to religion claim people are born with “coping mechanisms” that enable them to endure loss. The three mechanisms most widely discussed are:
- Disbelief or denial: this mechanism allows the person to adjust to the loss by allowing him or her to immediately deny it and then slowly come to terms.
- Disorganization and dependence: characterized by confusion, this mechanism forces the person to rely on others for everything from ordinary activities to major life decisions.
- Intellectualization: a mechanism in which the person gathers as much much information and data as possible to rationalize the event or loss. Saying like, “He’s in a better place,” or “My house burnt because of the faulty wires in the furnace,” are common effects of intellectualization.
Regardless of religion or psychology, events like the flight disappearance of MH370 put one fact into perspective: life can change in an instant. The world one knows in the morning can become little more than a distant memory by noon. We’re all headed for the same destiny, that much we do know. So the journey we take to get there is all we can call our own. You can only pave your own journey by being fully aware, all day every day.
This isn’t intended to scare you into a cave where you can protect yourself and those you love from major catastrophe. It is instead another way to warn you that the moment is now. Say what you must, do what feels right and revel in all you have – life can fade without a moment’s notice. Tomorrow is too late to cherish the moment – do it now.
