Make Your Problems Your Teachers, Not Your Punishment



I came across this quote in my reading last week--and I think it may very well change my life. (I know, I'm dramatic: everything changes my life. Bear with me.)

But for real--this quote/idea may change the way I view life:

Make your problems your teachers, 
not your punishment.

Is that THE most beautiful idea ever?

Imagine how different our lives would be if we would just change the way we view life's problems. What if we saw them [our problems] as TEACHERS?

So here's my tiny example/application.

Last night I was uploading a recipe on my blog and somehow I lost EVERY recipe I've ever saved on Blogger. With just one keystroke everything was gone. 

No back, back, back arrow. 

No history. 

No refresh. 

No cached pages to recall.

Now, before reading the above quote, I would have looked at that problem and said:

"SEE what happens when I try and preserve my recipe file, I get punished. I always try and do good and what do I get in return?" 

(PS: Am I the only one that has this nutty stream of consciousness?)

However, because I read that quote and it kind of "clicked" I instead said to myself:

"WOW--that is a major pain in the ba-hook! I HATE losing those recipes! Blast! BUT, what is this problem teaching me? I know! To back up my files. I'm lucky it happened now . . . because I should start backing up a lot of files, not just my recipes. I'd rather learn this lesson now than when I have even more recipes stored."

Is that deep or what? Changing my "stinkin' thinkin'" is a good thing, no?

Now, I know . . .  some problems are more painful than dumb lost electronic files, BUT, the idea is transformational. Don't you think?

Our problems can be teachers--it just depends on how we SEE/INTERPRET them.

I LOVE THAT!

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