do you LIVE or simply EXIST

Tree roots photo by zeitspuren

A tree with strong roots can withstand the most violent storm, but the tree can’t grow roots just as the storm appears on the horizon.
~ Dali Lama

When I was a kid in Junior High, I remember facing this bully named Baca. He had always pushed me around. And being rather meek as a child, I let him. But one day after pushing me around, he started to pick on a boy named Troy. Troy was one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. He was friendly, outgoing, and blind.

Something happened to me that day. As Baca pushed my blind friend against the wall and threatened him, I decided that was the last day Baca would intimidate me. I walked up to him and SHOVED. I looked him in the eye and told him he will never lay a hand on my friend ever again.

From that day forward, he still talked crap to us, especially when he was with his friends. He made threats, but he never touched either one of us again.

This experience taught me that it pays to stand up for yourself. I was fully ready to fight him that day, even though he was bigger than me and would have probably won. But I didn’t care. I was not going to LET him push me around anymore.

That was one of those moments that helped establish my self-esteem. It was one of those things that changed me from being a meek kid into someone whose not afraid to face a challenge.

When we survive a challenge, no matter how small, we experience a change in ourselves. It is the act of facing a challenge, and seeing what it took to face that challenge, that causes growth within us.

It’s not necessary to “win” a challenge to learn from it, even though that is probably what most people believe. Losing can teach you just as much, although the lesson isn’t always apparent. The simple act of facing a challenge cause us to stretch our minds in a new way. Once this type of growth takes place, it is difficult to go back.

The worst thing that can happen to you is not losing a challenge, but refusing to face it. By avoiding a challenge, we stunt our own growth. We become stagnant: Never having to face the risk of loss, but also never facing the chance of victory. We become one of “those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Recognize difficulties in life as challenge, and therefore an opportunity

As difficulties and obsticles block your path of life, try to think of them as a challenge for you to overcome. Use that challenge as a means of growth.

For example, one difficulty many people face is money. Either we don’t make enough, or no matter how much we make we spend it all. Take that as a challenge to solve a money problem. Think about what you need to do to overcome it. Do you need to earn more? Do you need to control your spending? Do you need to change your entire outlook about money?

Take yourself out of the problem

One of the techniques I am learning about in my Masters program to become a professional counselor is desensitizing. Here’s one way of using desensitizing to take yourself out of the problem: Imaging you are in a train. As the train is moving along, observe the country side, the trees, the bridges, the fields. Now you come upon a clearing. In that clearing is someone who is in the middle of experiencing your challenge. It’s important to that you seperate yourself from the picture, even if it is you are seeing yourself in that picture. Pretend you are outside of your body watching it all happen. Regardless of how you feel about it, watch it without emotion.

Examine the scene as it passes. What does it look like? What are all the characters doing in the scene? How did they get there? What can you guess about the unknowns in the scene? What is each person thinking and why? Play it backwards. How did it get to this point?

Let it pass out of your view. Enjoy the view of the country side again before letting the scene pass into view again. Do this several times. Reflect on the scene to explore all the questions asked above. What other questions or aspects of the challenge can you examine?

If you’re like many people, you’ll be surprised to find that when you are out of the picture, you can see more choices and opportunities. Perhaps even the solution will come to you easily.

How can you use this or similar techniques in your other challenges.

Seek the every day challenge

We often overlook the day to day problems that plague us. We often ignore the problems that are ignorable and procrastinate solving them. Instead, seek them out. Solve them and get them out of your life.

Challenge your goals

Don’t assume that the goals you set for yourself last year are still the goals you need to follow this year. Treat them as a challenge. Examine every aspect of why you set that goal. Is it still valid? Do you still need to travel in that direction or is it time to change course?

Challenge yourself

Don’t be afraid to look yourself in the mirror and face the choices you make and why you make them. What good does it do to avoid your fears? What purpose does it serve?

Face your fears. Face the demons you keep locked away and take away the power they hold over you.

Learn from your challenges. Examine each one for the lesson it presents and recognize the growth within you.

Here is my challenge: readers who frequent this blog already know my goal is to work online, or at least be able to work from home, wherever home may be. I want to travel and see the world, not as a short lived vacation, but to relocate my home on a weekly or monthly basis. I want to live in foreign countries for as long as I want and not have to worry how I will save money to afford it. Instead, by working from my laptop, I can take my income with me so the vacation becomes a life long exploration of the world.

My challenge is to find the way to work from my laptop and not be tied to any one location.

What is your challenge? How will you face it? This is not a retorical question, please answer it here in the comments, or trackback from your own blog. Let us all learn together our challenges and ways of overcoming them.