There are probably few people that hate problems more than me. I like everything to go smooth and easy with no hurdles or challenges. There’s probably an argument for me being a perfectionist. I just like things to go “right”, the first time…everytime.
Here’s a silly example. Have you ever had your vehicle’s windshield hit by a rock? I’m the person who puts way too much thought and “analysis” into why a rock hit my windshield, “if I would have been driving in a different lane, the rock wouldn’t have hit my vehicle.” “If only I would have been going a different speed, I wouldn’t have been near that rock…” “If I would have left just 15 seconds earlier or later, I would have missed that rock…”, etc., etc. Ultimately, knowing the whole time that trying to figure those things out won’t help, because there was no way to know it was going to happen when it did.
I don’t feel like that’s a bad thing, because I believe we should all strive for excellence. But, what I learn more everyday is that it doesn’t always work out that way. Sometimes things happen. Sometimes things go wrong that are completely out of our control. Sometimes it’s just part of life and being alive.
At the end of the day, most things happen as a result of things that we’ve done and some things happen that we have no control over. It’s our duty to do everything we can for ourselves, our family, our co-workers, our customers and our friends to prevent problems from happening, but when problems do happen we need to take advantage of them.
We need to learn from our problems. We need to use them to make us appreciate the good times that are problem free more. We need to use them as tools to help ourselves and others prevent similar problems in the future.
I don’t think any of us want problems, but they definitely give us a different perspective. They make us a little more thankful. They make us work a little bit harder. They make us find out what we’re really made of.
The success after the struggle always feels a little bit better than when everything went perfect, so don’t hate the hurdles. Use them.