“Personal tragedy has ways of focusing us in ways other things can’t.”
Congressman Joseph Morelle, NY, recently said this, and oh boy, is that ever true.

Focus isn’t always a calm, zen-like, candlelit process. Sometimes it’s a zap. A kick in the gut. A cruel nudge from the universe that screams: Wake up. Rethink. Re-route.

Many years ago, a friend and colleague told me just days before he died that he thought the job would kill him. I brushed it off at the time, the way we often do with dark humor, thinking it was just workplace cynicism. But when he was gone, suddenly, brutally, I couldn’t un-hear those words. I shifted my path soon after. I had to. The universe had slapped me hard across the face and whispered ,”Don’t let this be you.”

At another job, I lost a dear young friend to cancer. That loss cracked open the floor beneath me. Again, I had to refocus. Again, the question: What the hell am I doing with my one wild, limited life?

And then a huge zap. My spouse died, suddenly and far too young.  Just gone. I had to mourn him, guide my son, and at the same time learn how to breathe in a new, unfamiliar air. It forced me to chart an entirely new path not by choice, but by necessity.

And then. And then. And then. Life keeps throwing those shocks. Each one hurts. Each one leaves scars. But each one forces focus.

The thing about focus is that it drips with sadness. It rarely comes gift-wrapped with joy. It’s more like a thunderclap that rearranges your priorities. Tragedy has this way of cutting through the noise, the meetings, the petty squabbles, the to-do lists, and showing you what matters. Or at least, what doesn’t.

I don’t wish these jolts on anyone. I don’t glorify them. But I know this.  Tragedy has a cruel clarity to it. It strips life down to its essentials. It reminds us that we’re finite. And sometimes, that’s the only thing strong enough to make us change.

Focus hurts. But focus saves.