If you use Windows as an operating system on your computer, you will know that the critical button on the bottom left hand corner is the start button. If you follow it to its logical conclusion, you will find an option to restart as well as an option to shut down.
Report by Thembe Khumalo
Usually conversations about restarting are generated at the beginning of the year, when we are all busy making resolutions and perhaps even planning revolutions.
But it occurred to me lately that like a computer, a life can also have a metaphoric restart button. The key is understanding how to find it, and knowing when to use it.
Restarting a life, a disposition, a business, or a position can seem daunting on the one hand, but also exciting on the other. The best thing about it is that you don’t have to shut down and start again. You can simply begin again from where you are. One doesn’t always restart because one has failed. Sometimes one restarts because they desire a change in direction; or because they have acquired a fresh perspective on an old issue.
Sometimes we leave that decision too late, and by the time we hover over the restart button, we have stretched our capacities to their limit, and it becomes a dicey issue knowing whether you will shut down completely or manage a restart. Instead of the fear of shutting down we begin to relish the thought of the peace that this option might bring. We look forward to a space without pressure, without demands, without expectations and without the ever present fear of never making it. By the time time we arrive at this point, the idea of restarting seems to require far too much energy and a resource reserve that we believe has run empty. We shun the idea of restarting as an option for someone younger, smater, better, even taller than we are. We balk at the suggestion that we could possibly be in a happy productive place again. And yet we can. And so must begin again.
It is often perplexing to observe how it is that some people have the resilience to keep on starting again, and others stop at the first fail? The easy answer would be that those who stop after failing once are the ones who don’t want the end result badly enough, but I think that’s the option that takes less thinking through. I believe the opposite to be true in certain cases. Sometimes when you want something really really bad, and you make an attempt to get it, the experience of failure can be so devastating that you never ever ever want to try again. Because as you are trying you begin to visualise the goal already accomplished, you begin to imagine the new space that you will occupy, you taste the possibility of success, you come within reach of the object of your heart’s desire. To face disappointment again after coming so close just seems unbearable; and so you opt not to bear it.
I could of course be wrong. Perhaps there is a fountain of resilience somewhere that some people drink from and others know not where to find. On the face of it, resilience can come from experience. Once you have failed and risen up once, you will know that getting up is a doable procedure, and you won’t balk at doing it a second time, and a third, and a fourth.
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Resilience cannot exist without hope, and it is this which gives us fuel to begin again. The capacity to imagine that a better life, business, relationship, career or indeed country could be your will improve your ability to cope with challenges, disappointments, loss, traumatic and stress. Hope will help you to move forward.
But going back to the restart button, if you had a computer that you knew for sure had a restart button, but you didn’t know where to find that button, that would be a serious problem. It is a challenge that many people have with their lives. They recognize the need for a restart, they acknowledge that a restart is in fact possible, but they are clueless as to how or where to begin. Having been told that the beginning is a very good place to start, if you find yourself in the middle of a life, you know very well that you cant go back to the beginning (although of course there is always the option of a born again experience!) The answer of course, is to start where you are!
lThembe Khumalo writes in her personal capacity. Readers’ comments can be sent to [email protected].
