Imagining the Parkinson's Story

What will my Parkinson's disease be like next year? In 5 years? How fast will my PD progress?  These are not inspiring questions.   And if you are asking them the answer in your head is not likely to be overly encouraging.  I could spend all day imagining the worst of predictions.

PD or no PD, we all spend time, often a great deal of time, translating our current struggles into tomorrow's sorrows. Why do we envisage unhappy endings in the middle of the story.  Instead, we could be writing the ending we want and working to make it a reality.  I am convinced that there must be no giving up on the best ending, even in the worst of times.

Great authors start fictional works with the end in mind. Successful adventurers begin their journeys with their destination chosen. It is a terrible waste to simply live like you write a journal or just wander through each day, month or year aimlessly without direction. There is little benefit to singing endless verses of the Doris Day fatalistic hit, "Que Sera Sera". How about memorizing Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" instead.  After all, which is more inspiring?

Someone once said, "Life wouldn't be so tough if it weren't so daily."  It is certainly true for those of us with PD. The dailyness is often tough, and we know it may well get worse. But what if we write our story as a battle that ends victoriously. What does "victory" mean to you? If you can't define it how will you attain it? Now I know that a positive plan does not mean it will play out perfectly. Circumstances may dictate edits to the plan, a twist in the tale or even writing a new chapter. But if you cannot imagine a happy ending then today's troubles will replay themselves as variations on the "woe is me" theme.

We must dare to imagine a way through the troubles we face. We must define success even when doing so creates the fear of failure. We must pursue our best dreams even if it means confronting our worst nightmares. If we fail to script a hero's ending to life's saga then we have become the villain.