See Difficulties as Opportunities

Reflection: 

A great professor by the name of Carol Yeager once asked, “do you see difficulties as a problem or as a challenge?” My answer is, I used to see difficulties as a problem but now I seem them as an opportunity. According to Roya R. Rad, who wrote an article entitled “10 Characteristics of Good Problem Solvers”, good problem solvers “go beyond their own conditioning”. My conditioning was to automatically see difficulties as a problem. I was prone to ask myself “why did this happen to me?” or say to myself, “this isn’t fair”. However, this way of thinking did not help me at all. It left in a place of being unproductive. More and more as life goes on I realized that difficulties occur all the time to everyone, not just me. I also realized that some people are better able to handle difficulties more than others. I thought to my self, “why is that?” Well, there is saying that says “if you ask, you shall receive”. I surely did receive the answer from listening to many great people, one of them being a motivational speaker by the name of  Jim Rohn. He once said “you cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you change yourself”. This statement opened me up to realizing that I can change how I react towards difficulties. I can look at them as opportunities to grow. Instead of saying “why me”?, I can say “what can I do about this?” Too many times difficulties stop great things from happening. For instance, difficulties can lead to a friendship to being sour, especially if viewing it as a problem, that you may not want to deal with.  However, if one looks at this difficulty as an opportunity, most likely they will think of the best approach to it. This can result in a friendship being stronger as opposed to it ending. 

Bibliography:

MA, PsyD, Roya. "10 Characteristics of Good Problem Solvers." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 24 Nov. 2013. Web. 27 Nov. 2013. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/roya-r-rad-ma-psyd/problem-solving_b_4302935.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003&utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false>.

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