In response to the question "do you approach difficulties as problems or challenges?" I would have to say that it depends on the difficulty. We could practice seeing all difficulties as a challenge, but that is somewhat unrealistic to human nature.
For me, when the difficulty can be resolved by spending my time and expending my effort, it is always solvable, therefore a challenge. When a difficulty requires from others a cooperation that is not forthcoming, unfortunately in my mind it then becomes a problem. Of course one could then assume responsibility for promoting cooperation as the challenge.
Every difficulty can not be approached as a challenge lest determination override common sense. If we disallow "problems", our competitive conditioning prevents us from recognizing when an issue really IS problematic, not merely a challenge to conquer.@cmc11
Thanks so sharing this. This is interesting. In my opinion, sometimes we come across a problem and it seems so unbearable that there's nothing that we can do becasue it is totally out of our control. Other times we can do something about. I think it's matter a really thinking about "what can you do?". Making of list of things of the best way to approach the problem can be very helpful. You would be surprised of what you can come up with. For instance, there was a lady that was trying to get her husband to paint a room for her. He would be home doing nothing and still didn't' pain the room. She would nag about it and it still would not get done. She thought about what can she do. She needed his cooperation to get the room painted in order to get other things done. One of the things she thought of was to speak to a marriage counselor she knows. After hearing the story the marriage counselor mentioned to not ever mention anything about the room being painted since he is already well aware that you need your room to be painted. Instead he advised her to compliment him on anything that he did. For example, she can say "honey, thank you for taking out the garbage or sweetie, I really appreciate you for paying the electric bill, there are so many husbands out there that don't do that but you do and I greatly appreciate it. She didn't think this made sense to do but when he did it, it sure enough worked. He eventually painted the room without her having to say another word about it while appreciating the things he was doing. In other words, sometimes, even if we don't get the cooperation we need from other people, there are other ways around it to be able to get their cooperation. We just have to seek for the answer. I know that it may not be easy. I can definitely relate but I do know that it's possible. If other people are getting such things done, why not me or why not you. Hope this was helpful in some way share or form :-) #cmc11
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