Hello Everyone
I see quite a few people have been enjoying yesterday’s blog. I thank you for all the support. Today’s blog topic is “Problems vs. Challenges”.
The difference between the two lies in how you mentally, emotionally, and spiritually approach them. I see the difference between the two as Negative vs. Positive thinking and action. What I mean by this that people view things as a problem which is a negative way of thinking. A challenge is a positive way of thinking. What most people think as a problem in their lives, I see as a challenge.
See a challenge is something that can be solved, or improved upon. Yes whatever it is may be difficult and seem to really effect your life at the moment in a negative way but is it really doing you any real harm? Or do you simply have to figure out how to solve or fix this challenge and move on? I see challenges as a way of learning. We face challenges in our everyday lives. Some are bigger and more important while others are small and unimportant to the whole grand scheme of life.
What we need to do is just face these challenges with a positive attitude and do our best to get through it. Yes it may be difficult. And yes you may even fail sometimes. But one thing you will find is that these challenges really haven’t hurt you. Once it is all said and done, you are fine. Most of the time life seems to work out. If it doesn’t move on to the next challenge because you know one is out there waiting for you to solve it so to speak.
Now as far as problems goes. Yes I agree with a bunch of you who say there is problems out there that really do hurt you and etc. But these cases are far rarely than the typical challenges of everyday life that you choose to call problems. In general, problems are just a result of a negative mindset about that particular situation. Most of our problems can easily be challenges if we chose to make them that way.
Let’s look at a few examples and see what I really mean. Example One. A mother is having “problems” with her two children. They seems to be out of control most of the time and their father is not much help. The mother is always so stressed out and complains to everyone. It’s always about her problems. Now I see this as a challenge. The challenge is to get her kids to behave more appropriately. A way of solving this challenge of hers is talk to the father and have him be more active with the children. She needs to look at her situation in a positive light and look at the positives first and then try to eliminate the negatives by introducing more positive behaviors. Simply trying to get rid of the negatives won’t work. You need to replace one with the other.Taking away without some sort of giving is going to be deemed unfair in the natural order of things. Overall her problems are actually challenges as they can be solved.
Example Two. A patient is dying of cancer that they cannot cure. The patient knows that we will eventually die from it. It is just a matter of when. However this patient is keeping a positive attitude about the whole thing. The people around him are reasonably happy as the patient is keeping their spirits up. To most people, dying of cancer is a huge problem. And I would say that too. But their is patients who are suffering from cancers that they know they can’t beat but wake up everyday determined to beat it anyway. They keep a positive attitude. They see this as one of the huge challenges that life is throwing at them. Yes they may fail and die of the cancer but they will always be remembered by those who loved them for their courage. God will judge them in a positive light because they fought for all their worth. Taking one of the most extreme problems and putting a positive on it as a challenge is probably the most bravest things one can do.
As you can see our little challenges that we so often call problems are not really problems. Call them challenges. Turn the negatives into positives. Learn from it. Grow! It will be hard sometimes and yes maybe hard all the time, but do it anyway. Live life as a positive.
Master Jonathan Field