Problems And Opportunities

Every time my grandmother Mercedes saw me trapped in one of those daily crossroads of life, she observed me carefully and infallibly approached me to repeat a saying with which she avoided all problems: “The good life tires, and the bad tame life ”. I confess that as a child I was irritated. The “tame” thing seemed more appropriate for wild horses or circus beasts. But growing up I discovered the delicate wisdom of that sentence and also understood that, indeed, there are forces within us that need to be tamed.

Human beings spend our lives feeling nostalgic for a happiness that we never had. A life in which there are no problems, no losses, no contradictions. Just achievements, peaceful days, and endless laughter. We rarely realize that if we have experienced all of this, it has only been for a fleeting moment.

We also get used to reacting with prevention in the face of any conflict. The word “problem” has a connotation of annoyance in our mind. We push her away. “Vade retro” we say when it appears on the horizon. The question then is: are problems as bad as they seem?

The learning

You probably remember Arithmetic classes. The teacher indicating the task to be elaborated and titled it: “Problems”. Then they would give you an exercise that included a situation in which Juan sold Pepe I don’t know how many apples, for so much money and you had to find the way to find out when Pepe had finally paid. If you did the process correctly, in the end you knew it.

Something similar happens in life.

Like it or not, you learn through problems. Not arithmetic problems, but others that are not so quantifiable that appear to us even when we wake up: “What a dream I have! I don’t want to get up, but I have to! ” During the day new conflicts may appear, bigger and smaller than this one. And throughout life the same thing happens. Only it is no longer about applying a formula, but about choosing the best possible path based on the resources we have as human beings.

There are no mechanical exits. That is why every problem involves learning. We are not the same before and after solving a situation because to solve it we have had to confront ourselves. Problems force us to ask ourselves, once again, what is ultimately what we really want, what is the direction we want to take in our life. For this reason, far from being a nuisance, problems are great teachers who invite us to learn.

The perspective

The problem is a breaking point where opposing forces are stressed. You can see it as a nuisance, or you can take an open perspective and realize that a contradiction is becoming visible that you had not previously taken into account.

Your perspective may be to hide or repress the problem, as a strategy to eliminate it. But it will not take long to reappear, sometimes with greater force. That is why perhaps the real problem is not in the situation that generates conflict, but in the way you see and work it. Some even manage to turn it around and turn it into an opportunity. Like Demosthenes, the greatest orator in Ancient Greece, who as a child had speech problems and worked hard to practically perfection in the art of oratory.

There is a popular saying, which my grandmother also keeps repeating: “If lemons fall from the sky, learn how to make lemonade.”