Reaching the End of your Rope: Thoughts on Coping

“When you reach the end of your rope,Hang on.” There is no other choice. …on second thought, sometimes there is. I’m not a big fan of coping and this quote sort of smacks of that.

In my opinion, Coping suggests you have no power in the situation
and often you do have more power than you think. Sometimes you’re so busy coping you don’t even look for a solution. Granted there are things truly out of your control, like chronic pain, crazy family, what have you. I’m not talking about those kind of things. Talking about your situations.

I was at the end of my rope at my job. A year ago. And for a year I dangled precariously, blindly hanging on. Then it finally got to be too much. I started getting chastised by friends for staying and I started sounding like a girl is a relationship with a bad boyfriend. Minimizing and making excuses. Pathetic. True, I didn’t just let go. But I did look for a longer rope that I could jump to so I could safely make it to the ground. I stopped making excuses for my life and well-being not being good and took steps to make it better.

You might not see a rope to jump to right now, but dammit, start at least looking for one. There is probably one close by. If you start swinging on your too short rope, you just may get in reach of it. But you have to start swinging.

So in spite of what my friend Franklin says, I say find another rope stupid. Sure, hang on till you find one, but please don’t hang indefinitely and helplessly. You are not helpless. You have more power than you know, you just have to choose to believe.

So start swinging baby!