See Your Troubles as Blessings

During the life leadership seminars I give, I often ask the participants this question: “Who would agree with me that we learn the most form our most difficult experiences?” Inevitably, nearly every hand in the room goes up. Given this, I often wonder why we, as human beings, spend so much of our lives focusing on the negative aspects of our most difficult experiences rather than seeing them for what they truly are: our greatest teachers.

You would not have the wisdom and knowledge you now possess were it not for the setbacks you have faxed, the mistakes you have made and the suffering you have endured. Once and for all, come to realize that pain is a teacher and failure is the highway to success. You cannot learn how to play the guitar without hitting a few wrong notes and you will never learn how to sail if you are not willing to tip the boat over a few times. Begin to see your troubles as blessings, resolve to transform your stumbling blocks into stepping stones and vow to turn your wounds into wisdom.

Like most people, I have encountered my own share of pain as I have advanced along the path of life. But I always try to remind myself that our character is shaped, not through life’s easiest experiences, but during life’s toughest ones. It is during life’s mot trying times that we discover who we really are and the fullness of the strength that lies within us. If you are currently experiencing challenges of your own, I respectfully offer the following words of Rainer Maria Rilke, which have helped me greatly when life throws one of its curves my way:

… have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the

Questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language.

Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could

not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present, you need to live the

question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing

the answer, some distant day.

The above article has been taken from the Book “Who will Cry When You Die” by Robin Sharma.

 

 

 

When Does Wisdom Kick In?

Life is a great teacher as we never really ever stop learning from our experiences in life.  There is a quote that goes: “A wise man learns from the mistakes of others, a fool learns from his own mistakes”  I had heard a paraphrased version of this same quote and so I went looking for it online as I actually thought that it went like this: “A wise man learns from his own mistakes, but an even wiser man learns from the mistakes of others”  For the longest time this is how I would quote this and I would add that the world is full of simply “wise people” and not so many “wiser ones”, as we tend to have to learn things through our own experience.

I would agree that if we are really smart, we will the word of those who have had certain experiences and learn to avoid the same mistakes through their testimony.  But unfortunately it just doesn’t seem to go this way most of the time.  Our child-like curiosity can get the best of us and we will just have to see for ourselves if it will work out or not (whatever it may be). This why it is said that experience is the best teacher, in fact, if you run into a brick wall you usually try to go a different way the next time around. ( Notice that I said usually.)

While growing up it seems to be innate to not take people’s word for things and to have a buying desire to prove other’s wrong, especially if they assert authority over us. But then, as time goes on, you start to figure that it might have been a lot better if you had paid attention to the teacher who had “been there and done that” in order to save yourself a lot of time and sometimes grief.  There can tend to linger on a certain pride that battles with having to give in and finally say “uncle” and accept that someone else just might know what they are saying. Weird, but we more often than not want to be right, sometimes even when we are wrong.

I believe that wisdom shines its light on us when we finally realize that we are not actually the “all-in-all” and that we need to pay attention to others on certain topics.  It is wonderful that we can have such a vast array of talent and intelligence around us from whom to draw.  We just need to use this and allow wisdom to “kick in”.