Turning crisis into an opportunity

Seize the opportunities to do good even when you are experiencing personal hardship. This profound message has been the guiding light of a friend who is experiencing financial crisis due to not having job for the past three months. Instead of dwelling on his problem, he looks at the sunny side of life. He studied cooking on-line and has been cooking for his family. He has learned how to cook different cuisine like Filipino food, Japanese, Korean, and also baking bread, cookies, and making pizza.

He said, “Learning and doing all these things not only ignite my creativity, but also deviate my mind from fear, worry, and anxiety. I cannot just dwell on things beyond my control. What happens in my life, I left it to God who knows what is best for me. I know that whatever happens in life, there is always a reason and a purpose. What is important to me now is my health. I’m thankful to the Lord that I am healthy. With good health nothing is impossible.”

I admire my friend’s perspective in dealing life now that he is thrown with a curve ball. I could not help remembering the saying, “ When life gives you a lemon, make a lemonade.” This is just what my friend is doing.

Writer Hunter Nuttall has also his own view regarding this matter. He said, “ For years, I had learned that in Chinese, the word for ‘crisis’ is the same as the word for ‘opportunity.’ The Chinese word for crisis consist of two characters: one meaning is ‘danger’ and the other meaning is ‘opportunity.’ To treat it as a crisis, you should live in fear. On the other hand, to treat it as an opportunity, you’ll need to be bold and courageous enough to make the situation work in your favor.

Nuttall and an unknown writer are in the notion that there are ways of turning an apparent crisis into an opportunity. They cite the following:

Use this time to reassess your life plan. When bad things are happening, it sometimes makes you stop and think about where your life is going. During this time, some people felt that there’re in the wrong career, or they had made the wrong decision. Whatever it is, take a minute to ask yourself if your life is moving in the direction you want to be. Every critical juncture has the potential to become a crisis or an opportunity.

Shift your perspective. If you look at this way, your crisis may really be the beginning of the greatest adventure in your life. Like:

• See your emotional crisis as a chance to learn how to deal with your emotions, as opposed to letting your emotions deal with you.

• See your spiritual crisis as an opportunity to see the essential anchor of your soul really is. Ask the Holy Spirit for enlightenment and guidance.

• See your relationship as a chance to learn that you are already complete and absolutely worthy of love even without a partner.

• See your financial crisis as a time to review how to handle your finances so that the same crisis would not keep on occurring.

• Finally, with a little perspective, any struggle can go from being a moment of crisis to being a moment of opportunity. All you have to do is to view your crisis as an opportunity.

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