Tell me if something like this has happened to you…. Because it happens to me ALL THE TIME!
You decide that you are going to do something, for example, save some money to pay for a vacation or pay off a credit card… then something happens to stop you, like an unexpected car expense. All of a sudden you feel like you are always stuck behind the eight ball, and the world won’t let you get ahead to reach your goals, or let you have a vacation.
Have you felt like that? We all have.
It is called ADVERSITY. And just like when Forrest Gump stepped in sh!t during his cross country run and the line “sh!t happens” became a tag line on a bumper sticker, adversity happens too. Heck, that’s the real name to the “sh!t.” And yes, it sucks, it smells, and it is an awful deterrent to any goal.
But, you have two choices. You can dwell on it and complain… or you could be like Forrest Gump, say “it happens,” then take another step and keep moving.
Adversity is an interesting beast. It happens in every aspect of life. Why? Because a majority of the 20th century, we have become obsessed with making our world about ease and convenience– about coming up with a way of battling adversity. When time was a problem, we developed cars to make travel time quicker, creating more time. When passing messages took too long, we developed phones to communicate quicker. As a society we are always looking for ways to destroy adversity.
Now while this has allowed our society to grow in exponential ways (I really don’t want to go back to times of pre-cars) I also believe that this has created a society that allows adversity to win many battles because so much is done for us so quickly, and thus has allowed us to lose both self-confidence and problem solving abilities. We simply don’t know how to say “it happens” and move on… instead we dwell on it, and let it stress us out and create anxiety.
But what if, for a brief moment prior to a major melt-down, you take a deep breath, say “it happens,” and focus on the next step. How would your life be different? Would you have less stress? Would you come up with a different solution instead of getting stuck up on that moment like a skipping CD (oh wait, CDs and records don’t have that problem anymore thanks to digital music… tehehe, just another example how we have eliminated adversity).
This blog is just written to get you thinking about the adversity in your life. No, I don’t like to use extra cash to pay for an unexpected expense, but “it happens.” The crazy thing is, that somehow someway, we learn to take care of it. But the real power comes from despite the adversity, we still keep our eye on what we want to achieve, regardless of the sh!t we have to step in to get there. When something matters to us, we make “it happen” too. And the stuff we have to overcome to get there builds our confidence, our character, and our determination to beat any adversity that may try to knock us down in the future. Therefore, learn to use adversity to your advantage. Change your relationship with the “sh!t that happens,” and learn from Forrest Gump to simply take the next step. Life will be less stressful that way.
