Hi everyone,
Let me describe my week to you. After travelling through Asia I wanted to continue my trip in Europe. In the plane from Bali to Rome I kept thinking how nice it would be to see my family for a while and, lucky me, my flight was delayed, so I had to stay in Amsterdam and couldn't catch my connection flight to Rome. At least I thought I was lucky because
Amsterdam is pretty close to my home town. At the airport they lost my backpack and I was standing there with a bad flu and my Bali clothes, wearing flip flops at about 5°C outside! Later it turned out that I would have to pay about 300€ to get my luggage back. After 6 hours of waiting at the baggage reclaim area with nothing to eat or drink I finally got my luggage and after a 3 hour train ride I arrived at my parents place. Later that week I wanted to try my new phone but I was somewhere else with my thoughts, so I inserted the sim card the wrong way around and damaged the electronics in the sim card slot, so my brand new phone needed to be repaired. The same day my brother called from school saying that his bike got damaged and that he can't use it anymore. When he arrived at home, he realized that his wallet was stolen as well. On top of everything we had to discover that a pipe broke in the basement and that there was lots of water inside the walls. The next day my computer broke down and I can't even switch it on anymore. What a week!
I'm really not one of these notoriously positive people but I must say that many positive things came out of all that trouble. For example, I also have an iPhone that doesn't connect to the wifi anymore. Apple charges between 200€ and 300€ for repairing that issue. The guy I found who is now repairing my new phone, is charging 30€ for repairing the iPhone and 50€ for the other mobile. So, damaging my phone really helped my to safe money especially given the fact that I now can sell the iPhone for a higher price. With the pipe breakage, we had to move lot of furniture around and we found a very expensive bracelet again, that is of a very high personal value. This also wouldn't have happened without the water damage. The insurance will cover for the damage, so no real harm has been done.
Only material things have been damaged this week and nothing of this is really important but this messed up week taught me a very important lesson. I knew it already but I keep forgetting it every now and then:
Life is never going to be the way we plan it but there are always two ways to look at trouble. You can ether be sad, complain and ask "Why me?" or you can see trouble as an opportunity for growth.
Do you know those people who never seem to struggle in life? It's not because they aren't confronted with problems or because they are always lucky. It's because they face the problems differently.
I'm not saying that you should accept all the negative things that happen in life and only try to see everything positive. I'm saying that there is something positive to every situation. Even if it is only to get to know yourself better and learning something for life. When everything sucks you can still observe your reaction and analyse what you are struggling with the most. This way you are much better prepared for the next challenge. Apart from that, when everything is upside down it's a nice opportunity to make some changes in your life that you usually wouldn't have made. Metaphorically speaking, when you have to turn your home into a construction side, you might as well get rid of the wallpaper you don't like anymore. People who seem to be genuinely successful are still aware of the responsibility they have for themselves. Life doesn't just happen to them and they don't see themselves as the victims of life. They are aware that they are in charge of there lives and are willing to turn every challenge into something they will benefit from later.
So you see, there is a very thin line between a successful and an unsuccessful life and the thing that makes the difference between both is usually the mindset with which we face challenges. Sometimes these challenges offer opportunities we can only see at the second sight.
So, I hope this post inspired you to take a closer look at every challenge you have to face in order to recognise the opportunities behind it.
All the best!
Stefanie
Picture: Urheberrecht: <a href='http://de.123rf.com/profile_sirer'>sirer / 123RF Stockfoto</a>
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