Take some time to think about the problems you have. Are they bad problems or good problems? Good problems are good for us as they bring us closer to where we want to be. When I wrote Leading in the First Person I got stuck on cover design, marketing, obtaining book reviews and a host of other problems. This was frustrating at first, but I started to recall the trivial problems I had before I started the book.
The book gave me new purpose! The problems that came along with its production were okay now because resolving them would bring me closer to where I wanted to be. I now knew that extending myself would take me to higher levels. Thinking this way helped me to resolve some of the problems I thought I had. The funny thing is: some of those problems which were external, were resolved within me because they no longer fit into my thinking, planning and future.
If I lived in low income housing I might have some bad neighbors. Now, if I improved my income and moved away, I might still encounter bad neighbors, but having a higher income would afford me a quality of life that I didn’t have before. This is similar to the analogy of the glass being half empty or half full. We fixate on this question. Instead, we should ask ourselves, “should I drink the water that’s in the glass because I need to hydrate now or, should I save the water that’s in the glass because I will eventually need to hydrate. Improve your situation and improve your problem. Similarly, improve your problem and improve your situation.
October 11, 2018