Someday is Today

​This past week you couldn’t look at social media or turn on the TV without hearing about the tragic deaths of Kobe Bryant and the other occupants of the helicopter. There was also a lot of airtime devoted to Demi Lovato and her comeback at the Grammys and the Superbowl after her struggle with addiction and drug overdose.  And as the collective public conscience processed the implications of these tragedies we seemed to sift down to some version of:
 
Carpe diem!
Someday isn’t coming – live for today!
Don’t miss an opportunity to tell people you love them!
 
None of these action steps are bad advice.  But I do wonder how this works for the people I see at The Mediation Table.  My clients are often feeling mired in tragedies of their own.  Their lives are in transition and they are having a very hard time seeing into the future and generally aren’t feeling very loving toward their partner, or sometimes anyone else. They are often hurting, confused and scared.  They aren’t feeling very carpe diem.  
 
I once had a friend tell me that if her ex-spouse died she wouldn’t go to his funeral. And they had children together.  Think about that – she wasn’t even willing to go to the funeral of the father of her children – even for her children’s sake!   That’s an indication of how acrimonious their divorce had been and how much bitterness she was still carrying.  Contrast this with the outcome we saw here with our Modern Family (no-regrets.html) when a beloved family member died recently and Modern Family Dad was able to attend the funeral of his ex-wife’s cousin because of the conscientious co-parenting relationship they had cultivated.  
 
Those are vastly different outcomes for these two families.  So what makes the difference? The difference is that each family had made an active choice about how they wanted to live their lives.  They had chosen different action steps. So as you are making decisions in your time of transition, how do you want to live your life?   
 
How can mediation help? 
 
As your mediator, it is my role to help people make decisions so they can take control of their lives and shape their futures.  By just engaging in mediation, rather than litigation (or alongside litigation), you have made a choice to decide what your future is going to look like.  Mediation is a facilitated discussion about you, your family, your needs and your goals.   In mediation, you make the decisions about your future rather than the judicial system.   So go ahead and carpe diem and make today your someday (and don’t forget to tell someone you love them)!