Take responsibility for your circumstances

To the editor:

At some point in our life, we all have a demon that needs to be dealt with. I’m not much for Bible stories, but years ago an older and wiser man told me about a Bible character who was attacked by a demon one evening, and they had a real knock-down, drag-out wrestling match that lasted all night. It took until dawn, but the good guy won the battle with the “demon,” who turned out to be his guardian angel.

At the time I didn’t get the gist of what it was all about, but now 30-some years later, I can equate the story toward the end of a personal mid-life crisis when I realized that loneliness had been a thorn in my side throughout most of my life. Up to that point, in spite of — or maybe because of — two divorces, I’d been wrestling with loneliness for years, and when I recognized it was my personal “demon” that caused some really hard times in my life, I decided to accept loneliness as an enemy that had to be overcome by learning how to live with it.

In the process of learning, I came to recognize the value of my own individuality, as well as my dependence on the local community and the people around me. Within a year or so, I had become involved in community affairs, and my loneliness was eventually replaced with an appreciation, and maybe even a preference, for solitude.

With the exception of a sad occurrence that had to be endured, I’ve been a happy man ever since I accepted responsibility for my own circumstances. To a large extent, we truly are the masters of our own destiny, but learning how to live our own life can be devilishly difficult at times. There are no silver bullets or secrets of success, and we all have our own lessons to learn, which reminds me of a second adviser in my younger days who assured me that, “When the lesson is learned, the suffering ceases.”

Art Carney

Wasilla