Problems - Leading to Greatness

Let's talk Problems and Living your Best Life, since they both go hand in hand.

It's been over a month since my last post. Many reasons around this, primarily I needed to stop, think, dive deep into this, and truly give myself the time to understand my own self and better comprehend the world around me. Attempting to hone in on where resilience, grit, and achieving great things comes from. Where it really comes from; why some people apparently strive more than others and why some people seem to struggle more than others. 

Let's start with how we generally live as humans. We hear lots about how to show empathy towards others, the value of this as humans, and what it does to the world around us. Humans are inately horrible at this; constantly discrediting others problems, comparing others problems, generalizing how people feel, or attempting to rationalize problems from their point of view. This is where a lot of mental health stigmas and biases come from. Showing empathy towards another’s problems, and empathizing with yourself about your own, allows you the freedom to wholeheartedly live life.

Whether you've had a breakup in a relationship, a bad month or two at work, have a loved one struggling through an illness or you're struggling through one yourself, maybe your car broke down, you have a difficult child, it’s raining and you have no umbrella with an important meeting to get to. Whatever it is, in that day and in that moment it’s your problem and it’s your BIGGEST problem. It often means the world to you and you could not imagine anything worse. 

Yours, mine, everyone's biggest problem is their biggest problem. We all have problems, obstacles, struggles, challenges and we all process them differently. There is no gauge to measure the difficulty of problems in life, they are our worst problems nonetheless. We can’t measure if my struggles are worse than someone else’s or if I should or should not respond in a specific way. To me and to you, no matter the challenge, it is your biggest challenge. When we begin comparing our challenges to others we either diminish our issues as not that important or we ask ourselves why others seem so distraught with their lack of ‘real’ problems. 

We all suffer from real problems, none can be dismissed or downplayed, they are exactly what they are...our biggest problem.

Achieving greatness in life really comes down to recognizing this. Watch how you handle your problems, both seemingly big or small challenges. Your resilience and grit are based around this, their roots grow directly from challenges. Watch how you handle even the seemingly small issues, they will tell you a lot about how you will handle the seemingly bigger issues. 

How does one person handle a cancer diagnosis better than someone else handles losing a job? How does someone take a relationship breakup worse than the loss of a loved one? The feeling of lifting a max weight at a gym is the same feeling for an Olympian as it is for a first time gym goer, the weight feels just as heavy when it’s at our max. Someone who doesn’t run will feel the same push to complete a 10km run as someone who can run a marathon, the mental battles are similar and the challenge feels the same. These problems are no worse nor less important, they are our biggest issues and are handled mentally as so. We fully choose how to handle them, we can learn a lot about ourselves by paying attention to this and we can achieve so much more when we learn to accept this. We can’t discredit these feelings, they are real and challenging but they will lead us to greatness when harnessed.

When life throws you a lemon, make lemonade. When life throws you a bag of lemons, make enough for others. When life throws you a box of lemons, open a lemonade stand. When life plants lemonade trees throughout your life, just as your believe you have it all together, pushing you to constantly be stepping around them....you get to choose what you do with that. We all choose differently and life experiences will play a role in dictating how we respond. Ultimately, recognize your challenges and the struggles of those around you, problems are all circumstantial and can’t be measured on degree of difficulty.

DadBud