When you are down and out with broken bones, when a painkiller makes the most important part of a meal, when you spend your days (and nights) staring at the fan on the ceiling and wondering why you never found time to clean it, when you cannot even get water without yelling at someone, when all your thoughts end in "oh, why did this happen to me?"...that is when you get most philosophical in your life.
At first, it’s hard to believe that it can happen to you. Once that sets in, you realize how dependent you can get on others. With a battered ego and the relentless pain, you understand how things have fallen apart all around you. You marvel at how you can actually influence others emotions just by lying in a bed. You wonder whether you are actually as courageous as you thought you were.
After coming to terms with the pain and getting into a "routine", you start thinking about the ways to stop worrying. You start reading books, talking to people who don't keep reminding you that you are ill, listening to music and you start feeling comfortable. You have understood that it’s mostly because of your own carelessness that you broke yourself. You start believing in that famous line - "time heals everything". It sure does, with some remnants of course!
You are also enlightened about people who matter most. It is true that you have enough strength in yourself to cope up with anything that happens. But a little help from loved ones does not hurt :-).
And then is when you rise. You feel so much braver than before. All's well and in control. You have a new knowledge about yourself that if in future something worse happens you can "handle" it! You wonder, if this had not happened, would you have discovered your true strength?
Guess you would have to wait for some other catastrophe.
