It doesn't matter if the water is cold or warm if you're going to have to wade through it anyway. ~~Teilhard de Chardin
Life is going to throw you good times and bad. Some of it will be within our control, other times, not so much. The only thing you can always control is your reaction to it. As a young and immature person, tough times would often times leave me throwing a 'woe is me' party. I wasn't able to see that it takes tough times and happy times to live a full life. Without trials, how could we possibly enjoy the simple moments?
What if every failure caused people to give up? What if every challenging relationship ended? What if Albert Einstein was a quitter?
Listen to what Otto Neugebauer, a historian of science, said about Albert Einstein:
As he was a late talker, his parents were worried. At last, at the supper table one night, he broke his silence to say, "The soup is too hot."Greatly relieved, his parents asked why he had never said a word before. Albert replied, "Because up to now everything was in order." In 1895, at the age of 17, Albert Einstein applied for early admission into the Swiss Federal Polytechnical School (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule or ETH). He passed the math and science sections of the entrance exam, but failed the rest (history, languages, geography, etc.)! Einstein had to go to a trade school before he retook the exam and was finally admitted to ETH a year later.Can you imagine? People are often times right on the very edge of success when they hit a pothole....and retreat. Oh, the tragedy. Know that handling those potholes with dignity and wisdom will get you further in the end! Personal failures are expected in life. If we were perfect, life would be pretty boring.
There are also uncontrollable bad times. Perhaps a family member gets very ill or passes away. Maybe you lose your job and suffer through financial hardship. Maybe someone does something horrible to you. Unfortunately, it happens. That's part of life. One thing that I have learned over the years is that the way you handle these trials far outweighs the trial itself.
How you view these tough times illuminates who you are. We've all seen it. Someone gets served a meal that isn't up to par or is graded poorly on a school paper. Arms flail. Maybe they mutter under their breath. And then, in a worst case scenario, the blame is passed. Please don't fall victim to the blame game. Even if it truly is someone else's fault, what good will it do anyone to dwell on it? Fix it, try harder, ask for a remedy.....quickly and politely.
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