Life is a problem – solving affair
Life for all of us has its problems. It has been said that life is a problem-solving existence which will defeat us if we let it. But I has also been said that no man ever sank under the burden of one day. It is when tomorrow’s burden is added that the weight becomes unbearable.
We must take life a day at a time, and obstacles are a part of life. They help us learn and develop and improve in all we do.
Even as children, we soon discover that problems must be solved if we are to achieve our desires. As we grow older and become more involved with life, the problems and obstacles increase. The boy who wants to go fishing with his father and has just been invited to play in the all-star game on the same day, has to cope with a problem. Or the young lady who has already promised to baby-sit for the neighbors, only to receive a long-awaited incitation for a special date, has a problem. And so, it is – for each of us – every day. But if we face each problem and each day head-on, our ability to cope with adversity increases and new dimensions are added to our character. The final result is that life becomes more meaningful.
It is also well to remember that we learn and grow by solving problems, not by worrying about them. We often create many of our own complications by failing to keep life simple. We must brush worries and failures aside, or we may never get around to any solutions. Worry is a mental poison. It paralyzes thought and action.
Harold Walker said that “You can think about your problems, or you can worry about them, and there is a vast difference between the two… Thinking works its way through problems to conclusions…When you worry, you go over the same ground endlessly and come out the same place you started. Thinking makes progress from one place to another; worry remains static. The problem of life is to change worry into thinking.”1
Life is a constant problem-solving affair, but each of us has deep within us the blessing of opportunity – no matter how heavy our burdens or how perplexing our difficulties – to think through and solve problems.
1 Harold B Walker, Power to Manage Yourself
August 20, 1972
Broadcast Number 2,239