Bridge to Success

Life's Like This — A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame others for his failures. I believe it would be safe to assume that we all go through life hoping, perhaps even dreaming of finding success in our life's ambitions. The path to success is often riddled with obstacles and a series of setbacks that keep us from achieving our goals. And with those setbacks, disappointment and depression can occur causing us to doubt if our dreams and aspirations will ever materialize. At times like this, it is easy to give up hope, to throw in the towel and quit pursuing our goals. Quite often, we are quick to blame others for our failures rather than examining our role in our inability to realize our dreams. Once we start down the path of blaming others, we will find increased difficulty in achieving success until we remove the blinders that hinder our personal growth.

Confronting Our Attitude

Life's Like This — To some, life is a breeze and for others it's just one head wind after another. Facing storms and challenges in life is simply, part of life. Many of us wish that we could avoid them altogether, that they would chart a course in a direction that steers clear of our personal lives and all the people we love and care for. But as we grow older and life unfolds, we quickly come to realize that the lessons and challenges of life are not for a select few — everyone must have their share of them to contemplate, to wrestle with, to try to make sense of, and to try to avoid again in the future. While it sometimes seems that others live lives that are free of many of the obstacles you or I are forced to confront, life does not discriminate — it doesn't matter if you are rich or poor, the challenges of life are sure to unfold and must be met regardless of our wealth or social standing. How we meet the challenges we are confronted with will often dictate their outcome and the impact they eventually have on our lives.

Understanding Emotional Walls

Life’s Like This — Sometimes all you can do is smile, move on with your day, hold back your tears, and pretend your okay. It isn’t easy to put on a happy face when inside your heart your emotions are tied up in a knot and you feel like you have been put through the wringer of life where every ounce of positiveness has been squeezed out of your soul. You may wake up in the morning with every intention of ushering in a day filled with hope and joy only to encounter emotional setbacks that leave you reeling with feelings of anxiety, frustration, disappointment, and perhaps even anger. As your day unfolds, people you come in contact with may perceive you as being okay, with no worries or concerns, and with no idea that inside your heart you are going through an internal struggle that you desperately want to escape from. For those of us that have bubbly and out-going personalities, the mask of deception can be greater than for those whose normal appearance is more reserved. But for each personality, the pain one feels is still lurking in the corners of their heart, yearning for someone to understand, someone to reach out and see behind the mask and be able to touch their hearts in such a way that the emotional walls begin to crumble so you can then begin to share the pain that has been hidden from others.

Life And Consequences

Life’s Like This — We all know that there are consequences to any action we take. What we do can set into motion a series of events that may continue long after we’re gone. Unfortunately, when we are making a decision most of us think only of the immediate consequences. These are often misleading because they are short-lived and seemingly only impact our present condition in life. In many areas, however, the consequences of our actions or behavior can last a life-time and be a constant source of irritation. The consequences that result from our actions can be a wonderful learning resource that we can use to develop personal growth and character formation, but for that to happen, we need to embrace the lessons that life is trying to teach us. When we are able to do that, those lessons in life, while difficult to go through at times, can be a source of strength and encouragement for us.

Trials of Life

Life’s Like This — Every flower that ever bloomed had to go through a whole lot of dirt to get there. — Maria Delgado. In life, we often go through a lot of trials, or what you might think of as emotional garbage or obstacles, that prevent us from finding the peace and joy we all long for. Quite often, we have no choice in the trials that we are faced with. While some of them can be a result of personal choices, many of them we have no control over. Sometimes we might wonder why we have to go through a series of trials in life; why can’t it be smooth sailing? It would be nice if we didn’t have to go through them, but without the trials of life, we would be missing those ingredients that are, in my mind, essential for personal growth. You simply can’t go through life without getting your hands dirty in the growing process. There are going to be mud puddles that you may need to step through, dirt you may need to crawl over, and fields of dirt that you have to plow through to experience the happiness you have longed for. It can be a messy path, but one that we need to endure to find true peace and joy in life.

Learning From Our Mistakes

Life’s Like This — Sometimes life gives you a test before you had time to learn the lesson. All of us can recall the times when we were in school and were given a pop test. All of a sudden panic might have set in because you found yourself wondering how you will do on the test. You might have been caught off guard because you had not studied the material from your earlier classes. And so you take the test and find you did poorly, not because your teacher did not cover the material in class, but because you had not prepared for it. In life, it is difficult to predict when you might find yourself facing a pop test of life, one that you were totally unprepared for and had no experiences that might have prepared you for it. These kind of tests usually occur as you are growing up, when you start your journey through life and begin to have a multitude of life experiences that afford you the opportunity to learn important life lessons. But then there are other people who never seem to learn the lessons life gives them; who refuse to let their mistakes in life be reminders of things that had gone wrong, and so they continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. Tom Bodett, once said “The difference between school and life? In school you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson.” It would be nice if we all took to heart the lessons of life, but unfortunately stubbornness and an attitude that you know better often overrides ones common sense.

Fear of Change

Life’s Like This — People often change for two reasons. It can be either that you have learned enough that you want to change or you have been hurt enough that you need to. We all go through life where we have to face a multitude of challenges and decisions. Quite often, we make choices that affect our physical and mental well being, choices that we later come to discover were wrong and did not serve us well. We like to think the choices we make in life are the right ones and that we will have no regrets, but unfortunately none of us are perfect and so we sometimes are faced with the reality of the situation and find it necessary to make a change. The lessons in life are often the impetus that spur us into action, that provide the motivation to implement a change in our life. Sometimes, however, we are resistant to change because we fear the unknown, even when we know in our hearts that a change in our lives needs to occur in order for us to experience the personal growth that is vital for all of us.

In Need of Grace

Life’s Like This — Quite often we sail through life as if we are on cruise control, totally oblivious to the repercussions of our behavior. We have a mindset that we are going to do whatever we want to do no matter the personal consequences and without regard to how our behavior affects others. We don’t have to look very far to see the faults of others — we see them so often on the pages of our newspapers and plastered on the TV screens in our living rooms. But when it comes to seeing our own behavior, we are often short-sighted and clueless when our behavior is inappropriate. Our bad behavior can manifest itself in many ways. It may be the gesture you give to a passing motorist that cut you off on the freeway. It can be the way you snapped at a waitress when she got your order wrong. It can be your short temper that explodes in a fiery storm when you get upset with your spouse or children. Or it can be your lousy attitude that not only ruins your day but those who cross your path not knowing to tread carefully around you. It’s not that we are bad people — we are simply people that at times behave badly and find ourselves in need of God’s Grace.

Fortunately, grace, God’s unmerited favor, is always available for us to embrace and redeem ourselves in His eyes. But what if we extended grace to others? What if we chose to react differently to triggers that set off a chain of reactions that brought out the worst of us? What if we decided that we were going to do our best to reflect the character of Christ? How can making those choices change our behavior so that we are better able to cope with adversity and give us the peace that all of us want in life?

I believe it begins by learning to extend grace to ourselves, where we can learn to forgive ourselves for wrongs we have done to other people. If we cannot learn to forgive ourselves, then can we truly forgive others? So, when you do something wrong, go to God in prayer and ask Him to forgive you so you can rest assured that your sins are forgiven, even when you may think that whatever you did was unforgivable, know that God loves you and is there waiting to extend His grace to you. All you have to do to give the gift of grace to yourself is to tell yourself, “I forgive myself for what I did.” That’s all it takes, a simple statement, a simple prayer, and trust in God.

Courage to Change

Life’s Like This — Some people simply drift through life. Their choices, when they can muster the will to choose, tend to follow the course of least resistance. Finding the strength to follow the right path or the courage to simply do the right thing seems to be the furthest thing from their minds. It is often much easier to choose the road with the fewest bumps and grinds to get to the destination we want. And when we do encounter rough patches, we often complain about them rather than looking at them as an opportunity for personal growth and character building. Often, when we do make that difficult choice, when adversity slaps us in the face, we get discouraged and want to quit. The true test of one’s character is not only the choices one makes in life but how one responds to the consequences as a result of those choices.