Keeping on the Sunny Side

I’ve learned over the years that resilience isn’t about ignoring the hard stuff. It’s about how you choose to see it, or what you tell yourself it "means." When life gets heavy—trust me, I’ve had my share of heavy times—I’ve found myself standing at a kind of crossroads. One path stretches into shadows, the disappointments, letdowns, and losses I’ve endured. The other opens toward the light. Much more often than not, I’ve chosen to walk on the sunny side of the proverbial street.

Through the hard times—including a life-altering medical diagnosis, losing both my parents and many friends in my young years, getting fired from a job, and watching my income and opportunities plummet—I have somehow managed to hold onto a thread of joy. It has proven strong enough to keep me from tottering over the edge into depression and despair. It’s partly the Greek in me, the Zorba spirit that can wring beauty and a lesson even from a “most splendiferous crash,” as Zorba himself puts it in the famous final scene of the 1964 film.

Nevertheless, it hasn’t always been easy. There were days when it felt impossible to keep moving forward, when the weight of fear or grief pressed down so hard I thought I’d crumble. But I didn’t. Dark, painful memories can crowd in like gathering clouds before one of our near-daily thunderstorms in Atlanta. Memories of my loved ones’ suffering. Memories of my own dread facing so many “what ifs” that mostly never materialized.

But I survived. And in surviving, I came to trust my own resilience. I remind myself: I’ve been through worse before, and I made it through. I can do it again.

We can walk in the shadows, or we can choose the sunny side of the street.

Source: ChatGPT-created

When the darkest clouds roll in, I lean on positive memories of how I managed to get through earlier dark times. I think back to times when unexpected joy appeared in the middle of difficulty—a friend’s kindness, a moment of laughter, or the simple beauty of a flower in my garden. Those memories remind me that even when life feels unbearable, there is always something worth holding onto. Even when memories of traumatic experiences resurface, I remind myself that I'm still here and that I have learned from those experiences how to survive and thrive in spite of things that happened in the past.

Sometimes I also ask myself: How would X handle this? Sometimes I think of a loved one, a mentor, even a historical figure and how they might have faced my situation. Asking what they might say or how they might carry themselves gives me a fresh perspective. It nudges me out of my fear and into courage.

Maybe most importantly of all, I practice the art of reframing. Instead of telling myself—in my "self-talk"—that something happened because of some flaw in myself or someone else, I might remind myself that we are all flawed in some way and, well, things happen. Instead of believing I’m unlovable because a friend chooses to ghost me, I’m more likely to think they lack the ability or social skills to act in a kinder, more respectful way. Reframing doesn’t erase pain—including the pain of ghosting. It transforms it. It flips the emotion so that I can walk forward with purpose instead of defeat.

Keeping on the sunny side doesn’t mean pretending everything is fine. It means trusting that I have the strength to keep going, even when it isn’t fine. It means focusing on the light instead of the darkness—and carrying the light I’ve kindled through past struggles into the challenges of today. And it means believing, with all my heart, that brighter days always come.