Paul wrote a stunning post recently about perspective.
Actually that does it a huge disservice, but I haven’t got the skill or the talent to do it justice so I just suggest you go and read it.
Following on from that, I recently spoke to a friend who gave me a similar reminder about the real issues that people go through, issues which are about as far removed from the ‘problems’ adland likes to trade off as is physically possible.
In short, for the past 7 years, my friend’s wife has been slowly dying.
Some days the news has been good.
Some days the news has been bad.
Right now, the news is horrible.
He knows it.
She knows it.
Their young child knows it.
The chances of her seeing her 40th birthday are almost nil.
Imagine that.
Imagine how that must feel.
Not just dying before, what should be, the prime of your life … but leaving behind the people you love most in your life.
People you should be looking forward to a great future with.
People you should be seeing grow and develop thanks to your guiding hand and your nurturing heart.
I can’t imagine it.
I don’t want to imagine it.
It makes me feel a sense of desperation just thinking about it … and yet that is the very situation my friends wife is facing and the fact she can handle it with amazing strength, dignity, grace and positivity makes a total mockery of all the things we regard as annoyances in our life.
Bad food in a restaurant.
Bad traffic on the way to work
Bad results from your local football team.
Bad emails from a colleague, client or boss.
Bad timeframe to do an ad campaign for a client.
We have lost the plot.
We have lost our way.
Thank god for people like Tina.