The path to progress passes through the rocky terrain of obstacles. The person who is scared of facing difficulties should not expect to go higher in life. The very meaning of progress is attainment of height and for scaling height one has to labour hard, and strive more than that required for walking on a flat road. Going downhill requires no extra effort, nor does it take much time. If on a downhill road, it requires one day to cover certain distance, the same distance uphill might take four days. Hardships and obstacles are natural on the path to progress. Otherwise, everyone in the world would achieve greatness; nobody would remain ordinary or low.
Man is a divine being as well as an animal. But the difference is that while man is progress- oriented, the animal remains in the same primitive stage always. It does not know what development is. From birth to death it remains in the same condition. It has no capacity to understand the nature of obstacles and devise ways to fight against them and surmount them. Animals have a natural fear instinct. Sometime this fear instinct goads them to escape, at others to fight till death. But this behavior is instinctive, not reasoned or rational. It does not involve any reflection on the situation. An animal escapes out of fear and it fights too out of fear.
The distinctive feature of man is his faculty of reasoning and then deciding. Doing a work out of mere emotion or impulse should be considered as belonging to the category of animal behavior even though outwardly he is a human being. To strive for excellence is a divine feature of mankind.
What exactly are crises? Crises are those adverse conditions in life which raise obstacles in the path of a person who is walking towards a defined goal. These obstacles can be either manmade or circumstantial. Man-made obstacles are those which are created by other persons out of envy, jealously, ego etc., and appear in the forms of deceit, betrayal, opposition, argument, ill-treatment, deprivation, etc. Circumstantial obstacles include diseases, accidents and the like.
Crises in life could be of thousand types. Which crisis would arise when, cannot always be foreseen. Nor it is possible to remain prepared beforehand to tackle every type of problem which could come in future. Hence it is wise to find out a means or tool which could be helpful in general for all types of crises, and this tool could be nothing but one’s own attitude. It is the attitude that makes a foe appear like friend or vice-versa; good things begin to appear bad and bad things turn into good, all depending on the attitude. Sometimes a person becomes depressed when faced with ordinary problems of life, but at other times he remains balanced and smiling in the face of even big crises. Goodness, enmity, friendship, crisis, difficulty, smoothness, adversity, etc all these conflicting situations are ultimately reflections of one’s own view-point; these have no specific images of their own. If man develops an attitude of equanimity, all adversities will vanish spontaneously.Many occasions come in life when a person gets very disheartened and woeful. He finds no interest in any work, and his heart is filled with gloom and negativity; only adversities are visible all around. This type of situation is harmful for progress. It is wastage of both time and energy. For a person who wants to progress in any field, it is essential to remain energetic, enthusiastic and happy.
“I hated every minute of training, but I said, “Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.” – Muhammad Ali”
Whatever adversities are seen in the world, they largely depend on our own way of viewing things. When we begin to view our enemy as friend, it simultaneously transforms our inner ill-feeling or anger towards him into friendly feelings, and thereby protects us from the harm accruing from such internal negative feelings. The same applies to obstacles in life. When we view obstacles and hardships as our adversaries, it disturbs our mental equanimity and we are unable to find the right solutions. But if we keep our attitude towards these obstacles calm and objective, and consider these as divinely sent signals to keep us alert and going, we can derive benefits from these situations as well.
A balanced attitude is the greatest beneficiary of man. This virtue is achieved when man considers every work as god’s will. One, who expects to meet only favourable situation always and never any adversity, is destined to meander in the desert of failures. Such persons cannot progress in life. Hence one should always view every event as divinely ordained and keep doing one’s duty. This will ensure that there is no waning of energy or will power. Those who are able to keep themselves free from feelings of anxiety, fear, or gloomy thoughts rise and progress in life. But this attitude can come only if we have unwavering faith in God and view every event in the world as His will.
A critic looking at these tightly focused, targeted interventions might dismiss them as Band-Aid solutions. But that phrase should not be considered a term of disparagement. The Band-Aid is an inexpensive, convenient, and remarkably versatile solution to an astonishing array of problems. In their history, Band-Aids have probably allowed millions of people to keep working or playing tennis or cooking or walking when they would otherwise have had to stop. The Band-Aid solution is actually the best kind of solution because it involves solving a problem with the minimum amount of effort and time and cost.- Malcolm Gladwell
“Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are. – Arthur Golden”
Source:Akhand Jyoti Magazine May-June 2019