Thriving...in Spite of It

It’s Monday again, and —-wait, how did you just react to that? Did your shoulders square up or droop? Did you take a deep, invigorating breath, or expel a sigh? Whatever you’re facing this week, whether it’s the fire-breathing dragon in the corner office, the mean girl in the next cubicle or the inadequacies you see when you look in the mirror, the fact that you’re facing the same ongoing battles over and over doesn’t make them any easier, or the outcome any more certain.  Some days you still feel like the tiny 6th-grader, overloaded with heavy books, forgetting your locker combination, getting bullied out of your lunch money, and overwhelmed by the crowd of boisterous over-achievers. There you are, just trying to get by without being run over, caught up and pulled down in the undertow. Much like the chaos and turbulence of a hallway crowded with middle-schoolers hyped up on sodas and hormones, some of the biggest rivers we have to cross are overwhelming, mind-boggling and equally t