One
of the biggest challenges to change is just life itself.
We
have all had times when we set out to do something only to be thwarted by life
events which take time and effort to deal with meaning we lose that time and effort to use as we originally planned.
Modern
life is full of things that can take our minds and efforts away from the things
we want to achieve but it would be a real mistake to think of this as a modern phenomenon,
life has always been like this.
Go
back a few thousand years to the tales of Ancient Greece where Hercules, on his
journey to immortality had to first fight through madness and twelve labours,
or Odysseus whose journey home from the Trojan War took 10 years all because he
was in such a rush he forgot to make an offering to the Gods before he left
(the Ancient Greek equivalent of forgetting your passport!).
Maybe
come forward a thousand years or so to the Bible, where Jesus could not begin
his preaching until he had wandered through the desert and faced Satan’s
temptations.
It
is easy to dismiss these as simple stories but think about the times you have
had a problem that you think you have solved but always seems to come back at
you twice as bad, like Hercules facing the Lernaean Hydra. Or the times you
have been blown off course after being bewitched by a seductive distraction, like Odysseus and the nymph
Calypso. And the times you have put off doing things because devilish
temptations have appeared in front of you, like Jesus in the desert.
To
put it in more modern terms
SH*T
HAPPENS
And
it has always happened. The real issue is how we deal with the “slings and
arrows of outrageous fortune” (Shakespeare was in on it too!).
Some
people appear to drift along in rudderless boats just being pushed and buffeted
along by life’s events with no real ambition to get anywhere. There are those
who will simply endlessly moan about their constant bad luck in life or those
who develop extremely bitter anger and resentment at life as if all of those negative
events are deliberately targeted at them. Then there are those who strive to find
the best way to deal with it and move on.
It
is the latter we should all strive to be if we want to grow and move on in our
lives.
Obviously
it is not always that easy, some life events really push us to the limits,
mentally and physically. The tragedies and personal traumas that can occur in our
lives can leave us, at times paralysed and unable to move on at first but,
eventually we do, sometimes we need the help of others to lift us from the
depths, other times we find the strength within ourselves to pull ourselves up
and overcome these events.
Life
gets in the way, life has always gotten in the way, as long as we accept that
and the fact that life gets in everyone’s way in one way or another. As long as
we accept that fate, the gods or the universe has not singled us out, no matter
if it seems like that, we can begin to overcome the hurdles and move on with
our ambitions and our lives.
More
to come on how we can leap those hurdles of life…..
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