Daily Quote: “When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.” Helen Keller
When life throws you a nasty surprise what is your first reaction? Do you whine and cry that you always get the bad deals or do you wonder what opportunity this could be for you to take up?
What is the difference here? You still get the nasty surprise, but the approach to handling the nasty surprise is different. Which one would be the easier to handle?
It seems fairly obvious to most folk that if we have a positive attitude that life could be a little easier to cope with. Yet we hang onto this negativity. We complain about everything that goes wrong in our lives.
We miss the bus, we complain. We have a few rainy days and it’s dreadful. Then there’s the car breaking down and it’s a disaster. What about the time your computer broke down and it was as if the end of the world had hit you.
Yet any one of these could be an opportunity. Just to take the computer breaking down as an example. It could mean that your insurance could pay out and that older computer where the warrantee is about to expire could be replaced with a new one. It’s a great opportunity for a better deal.
If you approach each set-back as an opportunity suddenly things start to work better and it’s easier to cope. Whereas if you throw a huge amount of negativity at the situation it is much more difficult to cope with.
Of course it seems easier to write about this than to react that way when faced with the situation. It also depends on what else is going on in your life as to how a set-back affects you. If you are already suffering because of other situations not playing out in your favour then a further problem could become a major hurdle.
It really can be difficult to look at life with optimism when you are constantly battered with problems. You could have been diagnosed with having a major life threatening illness, find out you are being retrenched and your car breaks down. To be able to face all of these with optimism seems impossible to do.
But then, facing life with disappointment and negativity makes all these difficult patches so much more awful to have to live through. Looking for the opportunity in them could be what makes life suddenly worth living.
It isn’t always the bad situations where you are able to look for opportunities. There are many instances where just ordinary situations can offer endless new opportunities for you. If you are open to seeing them regardless of what situation you find yourself in, it will be so much easier to grab them.
You could be having lunch with a friend and find yourself discussing the possibility of sharing the costs of traveling to a country you have wanted to visit for a while. Or you could strike up a conversation with somebody next to you on a flight and find you have similar business interests and could do something together.
Whatever the situation, if you are actively viewing all of life with an open mind you will find that it gives you many more opportunities to achieve your goals.
