"Our lives improve only when we take chances—and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves."—Walter Anderson

 

To get over my chronic illness I have to do all that I can to make sure each step I take in that process will move me forward. One element that’s vital to doing that is being honest with myself. To try to make things easier on myself by pretending or hiding behind excuses is only going to make it more difficult to have a clear vision of where I need to be going.

 

To truly be honest with myself I can’t let desire dictate my thinking. I have to set aside my desires to be able to clearly discern between fact and fiction. That means being willing to consider all options, and when it’s called for, to choose the difficult in spite of my own desire not to.

 

One of the symptoms I struggle with is insomnia. At one point I thought I had discovered what, for my situation, was the main cause. I so wanted it to be right. However, it slowly began to dawn on me that I hadn’t done enough to be sure. There was something I was resisting.

 

To really be sure, I had to see what would happen when I exposed myself for several days to what I thought was the cause. That meant possibly struggling through several sleepless nights. Even though I was resisting, I knew that I had a much better chance of knowing if I was right by taking that extra step.

 

When I finally gave in, I found that there was possibly some credence to my suspicion, but not nearly as much as I had thought. I’m happy that I found that out, because as someone once told me, “Sometimes you have to find out where it isn’t before you can find out where it is.”

 

To me it simply boils down to two choices. I can try to run from reality by pretending, or I can honestly face reality and deal with it positively. When I do the former I end up digging myself deeper into the hole I'm already in. When I do the latter I climb out of the hole and can move forward and enrich my life.