Overcoming Challenges

I just read in one news about the total non availability of health care facilities for most of Ethiopia’s population. Does it mean that the people have to suffer? Well, the Government didn’t think so thankfully. They said, “What if the people can’t go to the clinic. We will take the clinic to them.” How wonderful! The workers often walk miles to reach families in remote areas.

Take the case of these two brothers. Come from a socially deprived family, an alcoholic father who couldn’t care less for his sons. One son takes to alcoholism, immerses himself in total self pity and ruins his life. His logic is, “Given my background, what else do you expect?” Take the other son. Just the reverse. A responsible person, leads a healthy life, staying away from any kind of addiction. His logic is, “Given my background, what else do you expect?” Ironical, isn’t it?

Life teaches us that all of us are endowed with tremendous power and ability. The power to rise above challenges. The ability to turn the corners around. The power to turn adversity into opportunity and opportunity into adversity. Both. We are our own friend, we are our own enemy. Krishna says in Bhagawat Gita, “aatmaiva aatmano bandhu, aatmaiva ripur aatmana.” (You are your own friend and foe).

“We are each responsible for our own lives. No one is and no one can be,” says popular talk show host Oprah who was initially thrown out as a news reader due to her tendency to get emotional. Not to be deterred, capitalizing on this tendency, she reinvented herself as a talk show host. And a successful one at that. A classic paradigm for turning adversity into opportunity. According to her she still faces many challenges but now has learnt how to handle them.

That one big road block between us and our goals is “Challenges.” When we do not allow this barrier to stand in our way, what we face is success. Sure some challenges and some obstacles may shake us. But……….

Looking at it in a more positive perspective and looking for ways to convert it as a stepping stone for success is one sure way of overcoming it. Like Oprah did.

Taking challenges as our blessings is another way to come out of them. “Bless a thing and it will bless you. Curse a thing and it will curse you….If you bless a situation, it has no power to hurt you and even if it is troublesome, it will gradually fade out if you sincerely bless it,” says Emmet Fox.

If only we understand that challenges are necessary for our growth, we would start appreciating them and that’s a sure sign of climbing the ladder of success.

Life tells us that there is nothing in it that we cannot handle. If we listen to that small voice we would recognize that we are capable of handling more than we think we can. Thomas Edison says, “If we did the things we are capable of, we would astound ourselves.”

That little voice in me says, “let me astound myself.”