We live in denial.
Even before the tragedies of Sept. 11, most of us were dependent on a healthy sense of denial in order to function on a daily basis. After all, we wouldn't be able to go about our normal activities if couldn't deny the potential dangers lurking on highways or on school playgrounds.
To some extent, we were even able to deny the magnitude of other people's feelings, hastily and prematurely reassuring others that "everything is going to be all right" when they were upset, without giving them a chance to fully express their emotions.
But the terrorist attacks on our nation blew away the protective mantle of denial that everyone needs to function. If it was enough to make George W. and Dan Rather cry on television, it was enough to shake you and me to our core, which is exhausting and debilitating. It also makes daily routines seem meaningless.
Add to this the continued stories of people who survived -- and people who didn't. How chance saved some and doomed others. How firefighters and police went into ground zero to save lives, then lost their own. As each of these stories unfolded, we identified and related and knew that it could have easily happened to any of us. And if it didn't happen to one of our own loved ones, it seems that many of us knew someone who knew someone who perished.
All of these factors made it difficult to return to business as usual. In particular, many of us working people struggled to get back on track in our professional lives.
However, just because most people said that life would never be the same again, doesn't mean it's different now than what it was. And after any great tradegy, to help yourself return to some semblance of normalcy, reach out to others and ask them how and what they are doing to try to get past the tragedy in their own lives.
Also recognize that you can use this time as an opportunity to become a more balanced person, to stop work from having such a strong hold over your day-to-day existence. Most workaholic-type personalities turn out to be more successful in their careers than in their personal relationships. Yet if there's one thing that any tragedy should teach all of us, it's that at the end of our lives, it's less important to have money than to have loved and have been loved. Living well is about loving well.
Dr. Goulston is the co-founder of CouplesCompany.com and the author of Get Out of Your Own Way: Overcoming Self-Defeating Behavior (Berkley, 1995) and The 6 Secrets of a Lasting Relationship (Putman, 2001).
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