I’ve been thinking a lot about how I think about obstacles over the past few days.
Now, as the wind howls outside our door and I hear more branches falling, I’m reminded of our last major storm in June that brought down huge limbs, creating a major obstacle to pulling out of our driveway. Those limbs blocked our getaway for a couple of hours. That gave me plenty of time to consider my thoughts. Let me just cut to the core on what I was thinking right after that storm.
“I can’t believe this. Another darn storm. How many more will we have this summer? The last one took out power in our neighborhood for hours; for some it was twenty-four hours. This is so inconvenient. I hate this.”
Now, I’m reading a book that suggests looking at obstacles in a very different way than making a list of complaints. The author writes about the joy of facing obstacles. She says, “It seemed as though every obstacle…was looked upon as another object to be overcome and another lovely opportunity to find a way over and around it.”
Could we really live that way?
What if I considered each obstacle as “another object to be overcome”? What if I made the decision to view each obstacle as a “lovely opportunity”?
How would it change my day and eventually my life, if I considered each obstacle with her perspective?
I’m going to try it. Will you?
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