Progress is anything but linear. It is a jagged, messy, unpredictable zigzag. We are conditioned to look for the clean, upward trajectory of a straight line—whether in a career, a creative pursuit, a personal habit, or even emotional healing. But the reality looks a lot more like a stock market chart or an ECG printout: sharp peaks, sudden dips, long plateaus where nothing seems to happen, and the occasional terrifying freefall. The trap is that we often mistake a temporary dip for total failure.
If you have been following my blog, you know I have written extensively about gratitude, realistic optimism, dreams, and hope. I have also been honest about feeling completely numb on certain days, and the sinking sensation of falling back into a familiar rut. Last week was one of those difficult stretches. It hit on various fronts, not just health. I felt unable to communicate or put my point across to people, trapped in a sequence of events that somehow keep repeating themselves in my life. To make things worse, I ran out of my subcutaneous infusion needles. It was a perfect storm of trivial and profound frustrations. Eventually, there came a point where I wanted to stop everything—the pills, the injections, the physiotherapy. Even the chirpy voice and hopeful eyes of my daughter weren’t able to pull me out of it.
But somehow, today, I regained my strength. Nothing cinematic happened. There were no sudden rainbows, no genies emerging from lamps. Nothing. Just me, a random infusion morning, and my ability to laugh at myself—a genetic gift from my father, because God knows I need it today.
I mean, look at me: the master strategist, thinking I had this illness completely under control. I drew up a gorgeous roadmap. I had a definitive plan. I have fifteen years of medical experience! And yet, a single, tiny, microscopic 26-gauge, 9-mm needle just casually bent my entire life’s blueprint over its knee and snapped it in half. Fifteen years of rigorous clinical training, utterly defeated by a piece of metal the size of a mosquito’s eyelash. Note to self: do not take the person in the mirror too seriously; she clearly has no real authority here.
If we are already laughing at our own contradictions, our own flaws, and our own foiled plans, no one else can use them as a weapon against us. We have already claimed the punchline. It creates a beautiful layer of emotional resilience because we aren’t desperately protecting a fragile image of perfection. Inheriting that trait from my father is a profound gift. It means he taught me how to gracefully accept being human. The best doctors, the best leaders, and the strongest patients aren’t the ones who never stumble—they are the ones who can look at the stumble, appreciate the comedy of the fall, brush themselves off, and keep moving.
I recently realized that life is basically just a malfunctioning Google Map. When wemiss a turn, it doesn’t scream, *Well, you ruined everything, let’s just drive you into a ditch shit head ! *
It just sighs electronically, says “Re-routing,” and calmly finds a whole new path. The destination stays exactly the same; the map just accepts that we missed the exit because we were either singing along to the radio or busy intercepting imaginary missiles in our head .
Meanwhile, if our life plan hits a single detour, our brain treats it like an apocalyptic event. If we could just step outside our own skulls and view our problems as an outsider, we’d realize our internal drama department is severely overfunded. We convince ourselves we are fighting massive, mythical dragons. In reality? We are mostly just getting stressed out by an angry gecko. The world isn’t ending; we just need to let the cosmic GPS do its thing.
Forty-eight hours ago, my world was ending. It was a full-scale, cinematic apocalypse inside my head.
Fast forward two days, and here I am.
The apocalypse has been canceled due to a sudden influx of coffee and a dramatic shift in perspective. Right now, I am sitting in the middle of the usual, beautifully controlled chaos of the ICU, casually sipping caffeine while my darling, microscopic subcutaneous needles are currently hugging my abdomen like tiny, metallic koalas.
Charlie Chaplin once wisely noted that “life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.” When we are trapped in the microscopic details of our struggles the view is devastatingly heavy. However , If we can just remember to adjust our lens and claim the punchline, we realize the world isn’t burning down after all—it’s just inviting us to laugh at the view.
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