The Blessings of Tribulation

●♥● The Blessings of Tribulation ●♥●

“What seem to us bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.”― Oscar Wilde

We all tend to rejoice over the golden days of our lives.  We remember the times when everything was going well and all our needs were met.  We are thankful for these periods and we mourn when they are lost to us.  We look with scorn and contempt upon the woe and misfortune that befall us.  When we experience them we forever wish that they would end and when they are done with we wish that they had never occurred.  What possible value could there be in our tribulations?  Some answers might surprise you.

In a seven year period how would you like to lose your mother to a long battle with multiple sclerosis, suffer an abusive marriage and divorce, succumb to clinical depression, and end up as an impoverished single mother on welfare?   No, not for you?  What if I told you that it was just such misfortunes that led to the creation of Harry Potter and his incredible wizarding world?  Yep, had J.K. Rowling been able to forego all these tragedies and pains it is quite likely that Harry would have remained little more than a nice idea shared with family and friends. 

The loss of her mother fueled Rowling’s writing about Harry’s loss of his parents.  We see her understanding of abuse in the cruelty of the Dursleys towards Harry.  The Dementors are physical manifestations of Rowling’s own struggles with depression.  Rowling felt like a failure and it is in that place of desperation she wrote her amazing story of a remarkable boy struggling to find his way in a strange unfamiliar world while facing a vicious and powerful enemy.  Even after she had managed to find a publisher who agreed to publish her book, the editor advised Rowling to get a day job since she had little chance of making money in children's books.

Now we look at this all in retrospect.  J.K. Rowling is a household name, a billionaire in the world of authors.  It would be interesting to ask her if she wishes that any of those tragedies had never come to pass.  The reality is that without them there is a good possibility that the circumstances used to create Harry Potter might never have come about.  Continued employment, a stable relationship and relative economic comfort would easily have dissipated any need to write or publish such a story.  Yes, these events remain painful and tragic but their value in developing Ms. Rowling is real and significant. 

I am not saying that misfortunes should be celebrated.  They are and will remain unpleasant and undesirable.  I am however stating that our hardships can and often do have value and it is important to recognize this.  From the adversity, pain and grief of Bill Wilson’s and Bob Smith’s lives came the foundation of Alcoholics Anonymous, an institution that has been responsible for the recovery of millions of lives trapped in addiction. Calamities have many times become the seeds for success.  The legend of the phoenix rising from its own ruin plays out in real life and in many actual lives.  It is an unfortunate truth that change is frequently fueled by pain.  We tend to avoid the discomfort of change until it becomes too painful or dangerous to remain the same.

In the film “It’s a Wonderful Life” George Bailey gets to see the value of his own life by discovering what would happen if he had never existed.  It would be an equally interesting film to see what would have happened if George had been spared many of the disappointments of his life.  For example, had George’s dad stayed healthy a little longer then he would likely have travelled, gone to college and perhaps Mary and their marriage might never have become part of his life.  Our lives can indeed be equally defined by both our triumphs and our tragedies.  

One of my greatest sorrows is the loss of my twin daughters.  Yet without this brutally heart-breaking event I would not have any of the children that I have today.   Death set in motion the possibilities for life that would not have been otherwise possible.  So I must accept that my ultimate grief birthed my greatest joys.  This is a paradoxical truth for me.  Ends create beginnings and creation destroys that from which it is created.  Baking a cake obliterates wheat, eggs, sugar cane and milk.  Personally realizing this truth can grant one significant peace.  As a father, my heart will forever ache for Sarah and Amy but I bless the brevity of their lives for bringing me Jeremiah, Courtney, Allison and Kimberley.

I write these words for two reasons.  First, if you are in turmoil now then understand that you may be at the genesis of something new and beneficial in your life.  Suffering does not guarantee improvements but it can offer the potential for growth and personal change.  You will reap great benefits if you are able find the gains within your losses.  Secondly, when life drags up the pains of your past then do your best to avoid indulging in regret.  Seek instead to remember any lessons that were learned and consider possible benefits that you derived while passing through your trials.  Think on the helpful circumstances, people, places and things that may have entered your life as a result of your difficulties.  Become comfortable with this paradox for we can achieve greater joy when we discover the blessings of tribulation.

©2018 Scott D. Wilson

The Gain Within Pain

_____The Gain Within Pain____

“Every problem or difficulty you face contains the seed of an equal or greater advantage or benefit.” –Napoleon Hill

Maybe I am odd but I got used to this viewpoint when I was young.  Yes, there may be exceptions.  Yet the vast majority of the time I have found that our troubles hold the beginnings of our greatness, the nuclei of our success.

Think of the caterpillar.  Great energy and effort go into the creation of a cocoon or chrysalis.  The creature goes from daily foraging, eating and avoiding predators to spending weeks cooped up and inactive as the painfully slow processes of metamorphosis take place.  If it has thoughts does it grow impatient day by day?

Ah, but all that work and waiting one day results in a complete transformation.  In one final struggle and momentous effort, our earthbound worm frees itself from its bonds to finally take flight.   We cannot know the thoughts, if any, of a caterpillar.  Nonetheless, it is clear that process that transforms an awkward worm into an elegant butterfly or a moth involves sweat and difficulty.  Yet that labour is the beginning of greatness for the creature as it leaves behind its former limitations.

What are you facing today?  Is a slow tedious process teaching you patience?  Is a difficult and stressful situation instructing you on perseverance?  Is an interaction with a harsh and difficult person coaching you on tolerance and kindness?   Is exhaustion and despair showing you the need to say ‘no’ others and to address your own welfare?  Look at your struggles.  They are not merely curses and deficits.  If you stay open to possibilities then you will see within your trials the buds of possible metamorphosis.  If you let it, your patient overcoming of a situation can literally transform you to soar beyond your current existence and expectations.

©2017 Scott D. Wilson

Get a perspective!

Get a perspective!

© 2015 Scott Wilson

 

"Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot." – Charlie Chaplin

 

As we navigate this thing called life we will routinely encounter both joys and sorrows. Goals will be thwarted.  Dreams will meet with difficulties.  Steps in the correct direction towards self-improvement will seem to stall and fail.  How we choose to deal with these events will literally make the difference between genuine success and failure.

 

If these events were simply logical matters we would all naturally resolve them in a dispassionate way.   Unfortunately, despite our beliefs to the contrary, we are not truly driven by rational thinking.  We are emotional creatures and emotions tend to drive thinking and trump our best intentions.  Emotions are the elements that turn easy tasks arduous and dreary work into joy.  When we simply try to mentally suppress our emotions we inevitably cause them to build in intensity until they overcome our control.  So we need to understand what factors affect our emotions.

 

One of the most powerful influences on our emotions is our perspective.  Fortunately, perspective is also a variable that we can greatly influence with our rationale minds.  Our minds can gain a measure of control over our emotions if we are willing to understand how our emotions are affected by our perceptions of the things and events around us.

 

To explain the power of perception and emotions allow me to use the extreme illustration of a phobia.  Arachnophobia is the extreme fear of spiders.  I have seen grown men and women jumping up on chairs and leaping great distances to evade the approach of a harmless house spider.  This tiny delicate creature that could easily be smashed by even the smallest toddler has the power to hurl an over 150 pound human being across a room.  Amazing.

 

Why does this happen?  Because the people affected by the phobia perceive the spider as a far greater threat than it is in reality.  Phobias are usually overcome by gradually changing the person’s perspective towards the object of their fear.  By repeated exposure the individuals come to realize that the objects of their fear are not truly threatening to them.  For the arachnophobic people, they come to see spiders for the delicate and benign creatures that they are.

 

This understanding can help us with our own difficulties.  I often see people developing a great deal of stress about what someone said or did to them or about some personal failure.  We tend to internalize these external stressors and then exaggerate their implications.  A person who is trying to lose weight succumbs to temptation and overeats on a weekend and then beats themselves up for the rest of the week.  Or worse, they contemplate quitting their efforts to improve their health.  We do this because we have lost perspective on parts of our lives and enable our emotions to overcome us.

 

I have a simple solution for such events.  I close my eyes and take a deep breath.  When I let out the breath slowly I try to imagine how I will perceive this difficulty tomorrow.  I then imagine how this problem will look in a week.  From there I move to a month and then a year.  Beyond that I seek to imagine the trouble from 5 and 10 years away.  Lastly, I imagine this matter from the perspective of my deathbed.  When I return from my time-travelling I ask myself “How was it?”  Based on my answers at the various times I respond accordingly.

 

Obviously I want to extend significant effort to those things that will have an impact on me when I am in my final moments.  However, I rarely find that any of my troubles seem to look all that bad beyond a day or a week.  What happened to the emotions and the trauma of the event that I am dealing with?  They are now tempered by the proper perspective of the situation.  If something will be forgettable or insignificant in less than a year then why would we want to give it so much of our hearts and our minds today?

 

This is only one exercise.  My point is that we can use our imagination and our minds to change our perspective on virtually anything from weight loss to a difficult spouse or from a troubled child to a bad job situation.  Perspective will not absolve us of the need to take action but it will help to relieve us of much of the fear and anger that might cloud our best response.

So if something is troubling you today then take a few quiet moments to honestly and creatively look at your problem from some new and different perspectives. You could discover that it is not nearly as bad as you thought or you might even find some solutions that you never considered before!