The Point: To get you to realize you don’t have to be beat down and bullied by circumstances in your life.
Don’t run from problems
Have you noticed in life that so many people are stuck in life because they won’t deal with their problems? They don’t seem to realize that… “Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.”
They want to go to college but they never do. They don’t like living where they live but they never choose another spot and move. They’re not satisfied with their house but they never find another one or make any changes to the one they have. They hate their jobs but they never find something better.
Why don’t you move?
I was in New York City riding and talking to a taxi driver one time and he was griping about every single thing relating to living in New York. t was too crowded, the politicians were terrible, he hated driving a cab, it was a terrible place to live and raise a family, there’s no opportunity for him to move up, the air was polluted, people were abrupt and rude, and everything was a hassle. Finally I said to him, “Why don’t you move?” The question shocked him. He turned around, looked at me, and said in total exasperation, “WHERE WOULD I GO!?”
I answered to him “ANYWHERE!”
As miserable as he was about being in New York City, anywhere else would have had to be an improvement. Once he had made that move he’d be in a better place to make a decision to see if there was another place he liked even better. When you’re caught in a losing cycle like that you’re wearing yourself out physically and mentally. You are accomplishing nothing. If you would just face the issue and take a step in some better direction you’d find your misery would start to evaporate.
That’s the only way he was going to solve his problems. If he was that miserable, he obviously needed to be somewhere else. He needed to start moving out of the miserable existence he was in towards a place where he could be happy.
As long as he stayed where he was he’d be the same as a dog running round in circles chasing his tail!
That’s the kind of mental trap we we all fall into.
We get so frustrated we can only see the problems. We lose total sight of the solutions. We let ourselves be bullied by circumstances that we can change.
All the energy we spend fusing and fuming about what’s wrong is wasted energy. We stay frustrated and exhausted. But if we took just one step in a direction for solving the problem we would become energized and filled with hope. We would start focusing on solutions. We would start taking back control of our lives.
Feedback: Did I make the point, or is there a better way to illustrate this? Do you have a situation like this in your life that you need to deal with? Did this help you get some ideas about doing something about it?
