Be Happy – No Life Without Challenges

You know! If you embrace your challenges with your positive mind, you can get transformed. How do you take your challenges? A man’s reach should exceed his grasp. If he is able to do so, he is rightfully entitled for the happiness available in heaven. One interpretation is that human aspiration must transcend limitations of current circumstances. There is no aim then, including heaven, which can escape our reach. Everything seems eminently attainable.

Life brings situations all the time as challenges. The trouble in facing them begins when we label them as such. We tend to see challenge as a problem, impediment, set-back, or obstacle. The label takes over and before you know it perfectly doable, the situation becomes a troublesome.

There are three methods to meet the challenges as enjoyable. You can call them it, Spirit and share it. The first method: Enjoy a challenge “because it is there”. Those were the words of George Mallory, the mountaineer, who, when asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, replied thus. He did not survive to tell the tale but those words have become a source of encouragement for mountaineers the world over. The Zen of such thought, without the investment of emotion and superlatives, can make light the passage from ill-health to healing, loss to plenty, impediment to fulfillment, and from discord to willingness. This is the light of acceptance. This is the light of acceptance. We climb several Mount Everests in our life, but resist and curse them all the time. Approaching a challenge “because it is there” is also the attitude of a witness.

Every challenge is an invitation for us to plumb the depths of our spirit, our talent, our ability. Every challenge surprises us with what we get to know about our inner reserves, about how vast and in-exhaustible they are. Rendered deaf and blind in childhood by a mystery fever, Helen Keller went on to be highly educated and flowered as a writer of repute, inspiring similarly challenged individuals.

Coming closer home, when Azim Premji returned prematurely from his engineering course in Stanford to take over Wipro after his father’s sudden death, he was 21 years old. The shareholders advised him to sell his company. They were sure that managing it was beyond this youngster. He didn’t take the advice. He proved them wrong. The beyond your own limits is also within you. The challenges before you can put forth your energies hidden inside. Can it be anything but enjoyable? This is the second method of spirit converting your challenges really enjoyable.

There is a third method. Facing a challenge successfully is a gift, so share it. Helen Keller worked tirelessly for others who were physically challenged through endowments and advocacy. When Baba Amte took up the cause of leprosy patients the challenge was daunting. Swami Vivekananda had a wonderful definition of sin. He said it is “…to say that you are weak or that others are weak”. The methods are intertwined. They are not really distinct. Embrace any of the method and you will find yourself on the other two sooner or later.

Those who adopt marketing job consider every consumer-complaint as a gift. A challenge is a gift to us as individuals. They come with a lot of heartbreak, but with the power to transform us. Embrace your challenges; watch them turn into your best friends. Climb the mountain, don’t avoid it. You might not reach the top, but the effort will bring top, meaning to your life and possibly to that of others. Take it granted that if you do not intend to meet the challenges, one day you will find your life bore.

Be Happy - No Life Without Challenges