A Handbook for Life

Do I Have To Struggle? Chapter goal: Identify your challenges and decide how to handle them.

If things were perfect for you, chances are you wouldn’t be reading a book entitled A Handbook for Life. Life presents us with a series of highs and lows, ups and downs. Where are you on that cycle right now? If you are on the low end you may be asking yourself, “Why do I have to struggle?” Would your struggles take on a different perspective if you viewed life’s circumstances as learning experiences? We grow more as human beings when we face challenges in our life more than we do when things are going well. Accept pain as a catalyst for change. Sometimes you need just a little discomfort to get you to sit down and examine what it is you really want and what you need to change. The challenge in question could be financial. It could be related to problems at work, or a conflict in a personal relationship. Regardless of what our struggles are, after we get through them we usually find that things tend to work out for the best. I faced a major challenge in my life when I was nineteen...

Thomas Jefferson said, “If you’re angry count to ten before you speak. If you’re really angry, count to one hundred.” He understood that when we’re angry we have a tendency to say and do things we may regret later. You may not realize is that allowing uncontrolled venting of your anger often harms you more than the person or people you may be venting to. Think of the person who gets all worked up while driving in rush hour traffic. He cuts people off, yells, and screams at everyone and no one in particular. By the time he gets where he's going, his blood pressure is through the roof and he is in a foul mood for the rest of the morning. In the past, I was known to kick and punch holes in walls when I was angry. I got pretty good at repairing sheet rock. It was easier to blame everyone around me for my situation rather than to take responsibility for my actions and reactions. Recently, the alarm company for my home called me on my cell phone. They told me that the alarm was going off and they had called the police. I thought that my daughter may have left the door ajar when leaving the house. She had done that before. I was on the other side of town, buying sheets of plywood and loading them onto my trailer. I couldn’t get home right away. I tried calling my daughter, but she didn’t answer her cell phone. I called a neighbor and asked him to meet the police and tell them I was on the way. While I was loading up the trailer and tying down the plywood, my neighbor called three times, wanting to know when I would be there because the police were already there. When I was five minutes from my house, the plywood came loose from the trailer and flew in the air, almost hitting the car behind me. I think you get the picture that this was not a stress-free ride home. As I was walking through traffic to pick up the plywood and put it back on the trailer, a different neighbor called to tell me the police were at my house. At that point all I could do was laugh out loud. I thought about how comical the whole situation was. I realized that things had spun so far out of control that nothing I could do would fix it. I was being tested and I had to decide how I would deal with the test...

To create the right environment to succeed, you need to do everything possible to cut negativity out of your life. The bigger your goal, the more careful you must be about maintaining a positive focus at all times. Be careful about whom you share your goals with. The most well meaning friends and relatives can shoot down your ideas and burst your bubble before you know it. This can apply to the goal of starting a new business, starting an exercise program, or even quitting smoking. Negativity can be contagious, but so is success. When I decided to begin investing in real estate, I only listened to the advice of people who were already successful real estate investors. I joined a real estate investors group to be around other like-minded people. I realized that the gloom and doom that permeated the news would do nothing to help me succeed in my new venture. As a result, I stopped watching the news on TV and stopped focusing on the negative stories in the newspaper. Maintaining a positive attitude will not keep you from encountering challenges. When I was in my twenties...