December 14, 2009

Wishing for "no more problems"?

Be careful what you wish for, as they say.

There was a time in my life when I was just sick and tired of all the challenges I had to face, and was on the verge of crying out for a life without problems when an image came into my mind. It was a mental picture of a white room, with padded walls, and a person sitting on a mattress on the floor, staring mindlessly at the wall.

I immediately recognized that the inhabitant of that room would be a person without any problems. Oh, they'd have problems all right, they just wouldn't be aware of them. They would be blissful in their ignorance, but that wasn't at all a condition to be wished for. Since then, I have seen every challenge in my life as something that lets me know I'm still "all there".

I was describing my life to someone and comparing it to the life of someone else I knew. "She has never had any problems I'm aware of," I said, and started drawing a line in the air with my finger. "Her life goes along straight with no ups and downs." Then I talked about my own life. And still drawing in the air I illustrated a jagged line with high peaks and deep valleys. "This is the way life is for me."

Another moment of illumination showed me that the line I had drawn for myself looked like the trace made by a heartbeat on a monitor. And the line for the other person was mostly a flatline. The epiphany there was that at least my interesting life demonstrated that I was very much alive.

Much better to be aware, even in pain, than to be blank and mindless with no problems.

Much better to be experiencing the roller coaster of life, than to be flatlined with no experiences at all.

When you tackle adversity, and you will, meet it head on. And be grateful for those problems, because the alternative is unthinkable.

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3 Comments:

At 11:40 PM, Anonymous Samuel said...

That is incredible I have never thought of adversity like this before. A representation of life.

 
At 4:33 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

i love this

 
At 9:27 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is so very true! Meaningful and grounded thinking to the core. I hope you don't mind me sharing this with several others in an upcoming presentation I'll be doing. Of course, you get credit for the wording. Thanks!

 

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