Norman Vincent Pearle said, ‘Even if you may be down to the worst the best is potentially within you’!
How can the best be potentially within you when you are down to the worst? The answer and the difference is your positive mental attitude.
In other words, what matters most in life is not what happens to you but how you react to what happens to you! The same condition or situation can build somebody and also destroy another person! How? If you treat your given problem (X) as a challenge you will overcome it and become strong as a person.
But if you treat your same given problem (X) as a problem you will be destroyed by it and become weak as a person. Your perception of and how you look at something or your state of mind, positive or negative, plays a critical role in regarding a certain condition either as a challenge or problem! A problem and a challenge are vastly different from each other.
A problem is a difficulty, hindrance or obstacle which prevents or stops your progress. On the other hand, a challenge is your demanding condition, situation or task which you decide to overcome with a lot of thinking and effort.
A person with a positive mental attitude says, ‘I am doing whatever it takes’! ‘I am paying whatever price is required’! ‘I am covering whatever distance is necessary!’ and ‘I am making whatever sacrifice is demanded’ until I overcome this challenge which I have right now!
Of course, in keeping with all God’s and human laws! In short, a problem is a barrier while a challenge is a bridge. Above all, every challenge is overcomable!!
While the purpose of your problem is to destroy and weaken you or make you fail; the only purpose of any of your challenges is to build and strengthen you or make you succeed. For example, when the butterfly is coming out of its cocoon it overcomes its challenge with a lot of effort.
By struggling to come out of its cocoon, the butterfly forces its body fluids to reach, develop and strengthen its wings. If you helped it to come out of its cocoon you would deprive it of its struggle and most likely it would die.
A biology teacher was teaching his students how a caterpillar turns into a butterfly. He told the students that in the next couple of hours, the butterfly would struggle to come out of its cocoon, but no one should help the butterfly.
Then he left. The students were waiting and it happened. The butterfly struggled to get out of its cocoon and against the advice of the teacher one student took pity on it and decided to help the butterfly come out of the cocoon.
He broke the cocoon to help the butterfly so it did not have to struggle anymore. But, shortly after wards, the butterfly died. The teacher explained to the student that it is a law of nature that the struggle to come out of the cocoon actually helps develop and strengthen the wings of the butterfly.
The same thing happens to the chick when it is coming out of the egg. By struggling to come out of the egg the chick forces the body fluids to circulate throughout the body to build and strengthen it. Similarly, by turning your problem into a challenge you decide to work hard and do whatever it takes, pay whatever price is required, cover whatever distance is necessary and make whatever sacrifice is demanded until you overcome your challenge.
In the process, you end up being strengthened and your capacity built up to overcome even other future challenges in your life. The turning of your problem into a challenge is 50 per cent of the solution! For example, at age 22, Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with a rare form of motor neurone disease and he was given only a few years to live.
The illness left him in a wheel chair and largely unable to speak except through a voice synthesizer. Stephen Hawkins turned his problem into a challenge and decided to do whatever it took, pay whatever price was required, cover whatever distance was necessary and make whatever sacrifice was demanded until he overcame his challenge of having only a few years to live.
He lived beyond ‘a few years’ and went on to complete his PhD postgraduate studies in Physics, became a professor and a fellow at Cambridge University in the UK, a renowned scientist for his work with black holes and relativity, and wrote popular science books including A Brief History of Time.
He died at 76 this month of March 2018 exactly 54 years after he had been given only ‘a few years to live’ by medical experts! The same ‘medical death sentence’ could have destroyed and weakened a pessimist or a person with a negative mental attitude! Another person who defied medical expert advice was Dorothy Maccabee.
Dorothy contracted cancer when her son was only 2 years old. Worse still, her husband had died only three months before her illness was diagnosed. Her medical doctors gave her only 2 years to live!
Dorothy turned her problem into a challenge. She made up her mind that would she live beyond the given 2 years until her son finished his University studies. She ran a small retail store left by her husband.
She went through numerous surgical operations and each time the medical doctors would tell her, ‘Just a few more months’! Dorothy’s cancer was not cured but those ‘few more years’ stretched into 20 years until she saw her son graduate from University. Two months later, she died.
Sometime back, Richard Blechnyden at St. Louis World Fair in the USA wanted to promote Indian tea. It was very hot and no one wanted to sample his tea. Richard had to think hard and quickly to turn a seemingly hopeless situation and problem into a challenge. He noticed that iced drinks were doing a flourishing business.
He came up with an idea to make his tea into an iced drink, mix in some sugar and offer it for sale. People loved it. That was how iced tea was introduced to the world! Richard went on to make millions of dollars on his idea of iced tea! If he had not turned his problem into a challenge Richard would have been one of the greatest failures at the St. Louis World Fair.
A father was shocked on reading his son’s School Report as it made clear that the boy was not a good student. The father had hoped that his son could become a lawyer but the Headmaster made it perfectly clear that there was no possibility of that happening – the boy was a failure.
The boy was Winston Churchill. He did not become a lawyer but he turned his problem into a challenge and went on to become one of the greatest leaders and Prime Ministers Great Britain has ever had! In 1809, there was a baby born in Kentucky, USA whose father was not only poor but also a lay about.
The child’s mother died when her son was only 9 years old. Before she died she used to tell her son that, ‘All opportunity had to be looked for and not waited for’.
The boy was not allowed to read books because his father disapproved. At the age of 10, the boy had to sleep in a bed for the first time; until then he slept on the floor. As the boy grew up he started to turn his many failures and problems into challenges and he overcame all of them!
The boy’s name is Abraham Lincoln who went on to become the US 16th President! When Jesus was condemned to death by Crucifixion He turned His problem into a challenge and then overcame it by rising from death to life after three days!
He did this so that those who believed in Him could also turn their problems into challenges and then overcome them by using their providence, faith, determination and positive expectation.
The key is to turn your problems into challenges so that you can overcome them by doing whatever it takes, paying whatever price is required, covering whatever distance is necessary and making whatever sacrifice is demanded until you overcome them. Remember, winners become winners because they, first, turn their problems into challenges and, second, they proceed to overcome those challenges. If you have a positive mental attitude you can achieve great things with your mind!
The essence of the Easter Season is to turn all your problems into challenges and then overcome them. I wish you a Very Happy Easter.
Author is a Motivational Mentor and Consultant in Positive Mind-Set Change. Email: positivemindpower1511@yahoo.com