Misfortune can be a blessing

We can’t stop life from throwing us a curve ball sometimes.  What do you do when you are thrown a curve ball?  Do you look at it in a myopic perspective? Or take it as a challenge and an opportunity for growth?

A young man said that his being born out of wedlock is his greatest misfortune. Being a fatherless child made him a subject of mockery among his classmates when he was growing up. He was bullied  and teased  as a child born out from the bamboo. This bullying made him insecure  and shy. But one day he realized that he should do something and would not allow this misfortune to ruin his life. He enrolled in the gym to learn martial arts. Because of the discipline that he learned from martial arts, he was able to gain self-confidence  and  the bullying stopped.

He said that his ‘misfortune’  actually helped him climbed the ladder of success. He  strived hard in his studies  and showed to the world that his predicament did not deter him from  reaching his dreams and goals in life. Now he is a manager of a company whose  workers have a high respect for him.

The Sri Chinmoy Inspiration website states that adversity, misfortunes or difficulties are an inescapable part of life. Whatever we do we will have to face these challenges. The important thing is not what happens to us but how we accept and deal with it. When adversity strikes, do the following:

Don’t give up. Sometimes in moment of difficulties we have the tendency to give up. But you have to bear in mind that successful people are those who never give up in times of challenges. Their motto has been “ If at first we don’t succeed, we have to keep on going.” It is the winner in life who has the last laugh.

Don’t blame others or the situation. When things go wrong, we are apt to blame other people or the situation. The blame game may help us feel a little bit better, but it doesn’t help us deal with the adverse force that we faced. Successful people don’t have time to blame the situation as this can encourage a sense of self-pity. We have to find out  what we can do to improve the situation rather than indulging the complaining game. If we focus on what we can do,  the more we can be effective.

Learn from adversity. It may be bit of cliché, but it’s really the difficult situation which gives us the opportunity for self-improvement. If life would be easy, we would just become complacent and too laid back.  It is adversity that forces us to re-evaluate our pre-conceived ideas and ingrained habits. Adversity is the shock that can lead to a deeper and more thoughtful attitude. If we see adversity as a necessary event for our own self-improvement, half the fear of adversity is lost. We no longer see the difficult situation as our enemy but as a part of our life.

Don’t worry. We cannot change things beyond our control, so why worry over the inevitable? One of the difficult aspects of adverse situation is the uncertainty and worry. Maybe we worry over our financial situation, but we shouldn’t get worry out of control. Rather than using our mental energy for worrying about things which we have no control, we better use this energy in doing what we can to improve the situation. 

Finally, don’t feel bad on things that are beyond our control. Our responsibility is to do the right  thing to make life better.

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