Overcoming Obstacles

Obstacles can become opportunities.

Along the way, everyone has experienced obstacles. Perhaps divorce, illness, family problems, hard economic times, legal woes, or even death have taken their emotional toil. Somehow you’ve straddled the bumps in the road. Maybe you’ve stepped aside and shielded yourself from the blows. Or perhaps you are one of those who leads a life of silent desperation, putting on a pretty face for the world, yet quietly retreating to your secret world of despair. Or maybe you are in denial about the burdens you carry, or perhaps you face obstacles head on and fight fire with fire.

Whatever your particular brand of coping now is the time to appreciate what you have overcome, the obstacles surmounted, and the strength amassed to rise above life’s inevitable challenges.

To some extent, obstacles are what you make of them. One person may see a mean-spirited coworker as an impediment and another may see the same person as a motivating force to do better and shine brighter. Some may see illness as insurmountable while others take it in stride. Still others may see death as a terrible loss while others view it as personally sad, but also as a blessed moment where one’s soul can live for eternity in Heaven.

Obstacles, in other words, are big and bright or as small and dull as you make them. They are subject to your interpretation, but you always know one when you have overcome one. You need to pat yourself on the back, as corny as it may sound, when you successfully rise to the challenges that face you.

Only you truly know what you’ve been through. Fear doesn’t taste good. Only you can acknowledge and reward yourself for all that you’ve become. Confidence isn’t easily measured, but it can be found in loving again after having lost, finding another job after being fired, or rebuilding your strength after suffering severe illness.

Courage in adversity is the stuff of heroes, perhaps not the ones you hear about in the papers, but the ones who may be living next door.

By recognizing past obstacles and acknowledging your accomplishments in overcoming them, you are best prepared for today’s challenges. With a heightened sense of self, obstacles can become opportunities.

When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, ’til it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn. ~ Harrier Beecher Stowe