Life can be challenging, disappointing and upsetting. Living is a laborious process. It often feels like a marathon of struggles peppered with occasional moments of disaster. If someone tells you that life is easy, he or she is probably expressing desire rather than reality. As much as we’d like it to be otherwise, life is difficult. Our protests and complaints in the face of tests and adversity can’t change that. Nothing can.
That leads many of us to believe that real change and finding a meaningful, positive existence is impossible. Illness becomes fatal. Failure becomes an expectation. Progress is reduced to mere fantasy. We surrender.
It’s an unnecessary and unwise surrender, though. While life is inevitably challenging, the difficulties we face are part of a larger process that provides us with the amazing opportunity to embrace life and to see the world with an enlightened sense of understanding and compassion.
While we’ll never eliminate our journeys through life’s rough patches, we can survive them. We can grow in the process, too, instilling our lives with greater purpose and incomparable rewards.
In order to do that, we must make decisions. We must decide, consciously, to persevere. We must also decide to look beyond immediate struggles toward something better. Making those decisions can itself be a challenge in the midst of life’s chaos. How can we hope to find direction?
The question defies a simple, universal answer. Finding that direction requires individual effort. It starts by recognizing the constantly changing world and our parts in it. In order to change, we must acquire new skills, new habits and new disciplines.
We must engage in new thinking.
We can’t hope for something new if we’re doing the same thing again and again. We can only hope to confront and grow in the face of life’s difficulties if we’re willing to do more. We must think. Then, we must re-think.
Of Lolly’s many awards and accolades, Lolly was designated a Top-50 Leadership and Management Expert by Inc. magazine. Huffington Post honored Lolly with the title of The Most Inspiring Woman in the World. Her writing has appeared in HBR, Inc.com, Fast Company (Ask The Expert), Huffington Post, and Psychology Today, and others. Her newest book, The Leadership Gap: What Gets Between You and Your Greatness has become a national bestseller.
Tara Burner
12. Aug, 2009
I was talking about this on twitter the other day and off line as well about how people faced with same problems handle it differently. Some freak out and go into depression or stress and others get motivated and get moving with something new and different.
Life is a journey…I choose not to say it’s difficult…I prefer to be in the positive…so it’s a journey, a learning experience 🙂
and so true to can’t expect something new if people keep doing the same thing.
Enjoy each day, live it to the fullest, make it the best day 🙂
Joe Slaughter
13. Aug, 2009
Sometimes, it is those difficulties of life, the things that we don’t like the most, that cause us to change & go down a different path than we would have explored before.
I like your conclusion – We can’t hope for something new if we’re doing the same thing over & over.
Thank you for verbalizing good challenging thoughts.
Heather Moreno
13. Aug, 2009
You know, Lolly, this is so important and not unlike the “stuff” we have to go through to get what we want. To get the school degree we must study; a clean kitchen requires doing dishes; being fit and healthy necessitates exercise. The process is, for the most part, not fun. It is the outcome that makes it all worthwhile. As you said, the challenges made growth possible.
Thank you!
KB
21. May, 2010
growth and development comes when we try something new. when we try it as if it the best thing we have ever done and can ever do. achieving come with giving it all that one can or have form within.