Loving Your Problems

My brother recently sent me a list of quotations/life advice as delivered by a woman in her 90’s. Though unequivocally heterosexual, he just loves cheesy quotation e-mail forwards. I do not.

But I loved this one.

The reason I loved it is that it just rang true on so many levels. It seemed to simplify this complicated business of life without discrediting the complications themselves. That sounds more confusing than it is, I promise.

With regards to this woman’s credibility, it stands to reason that if you have reached your ninth decade on this lovely planet, then you have likely weathered a few storms. You must have therefore acquired some knowledge worth sharing with the less experienced youngsters of the world. My personal sentiment is that if you are 90 and you have something to say, anything to say, I feel it is only fair that the rest of us prick up our ears.

While any of the items on the list of about 50 or so are worth exploring, one sticks out at this moment for me: she wrote that if we were all to throw our problems into a ring and then had a chance to look around at everyone else’s problems, we would grab ours back in a second. I am paraphrasing, but you get the gist.

This idea struck a chord with me because lately, I seem to be having so many conversations with a whole variety of people about life’s difficulties, human struggle, and individual effort and frustrations. I am not merely hanging around with a group of victim/martyr complainers (my friend Kevin Morrissey wisely advised me to run from those people like the wind). The truth is that people have valid struggles in their lives every day. I do. You do. We all do.

How “big” the struggle is not a matter of actual measurement, but rather subjective to our own personal sense of perception and relativity. No matter what, on any given day, we will all have problems. No one’s are worse or better, or more or less valid, than the person to your left or to your right.

And yes, that includes those with scads of money in their bank account, the exceptionally physically attractive, and/or those who are extremely gifted in any facet of life.

But let me propose an idea. It is not a particularly new idea, yet it is one that seems to have a certain amount of trouble “sticking.”

Maybe we do not have problems at all. Maybe each and every so called “problem” is really an opportunity, a challenge, a chance for change. Maybe it is a matter of reframing our perspective.
Consider that without the hills, bumps, and climbs, there would be no breathtaking views, no new standpoints, and, most importantly, no more coasting down on the other side. And often the coasting is so worthwhile and enjoyable that the arduous journey becomes a faded and distant memory.

It seems popular culture is saturated right now with people and things offering words about how to live your life to its fullest, how to attract success and happiness. You might not be open to hearing one more word about it, because it might be very true that your hill, whatever it may be, looms especially large right now.

At least, that is how I have been feeling feeling recently. Cognitively, I know the importance of optimism, the laws of attraction, and all that jazz. I believe in it all, and I know on some base level that life is an incredible journey and a gift to be treasured.

Sometimes, however, life just seems to be handing me lemons. Or throwing them at my head, as it were.

For example, lately, one “hill” certainly seemed to be casting a shadow over my life. My issue: I am making a concerted effort to write as much as possible, and therefore pouring so much of myself out into my writing—including this blog. I love to write, but it is also terrifying to me to put myself out there, so to speak. Why? Because the realization was creeping up on me as that dark shadow of the growing hill that maybe no one will ever read or (worse) care to read my work.

And it is not all about external validation, although I would be kidding myself to pretend that is not a component of my fear. It is mainly about the great horrible question—a question to which I both seek and avoid the answer. The question: what if I have nothing worthwhile to say? The underlying implication of course is that if I have nothing worthwhile to say, what am I doing with all of this writing?

What if my following my passion, as I feel I am doing, results in no great success--as all of those darned self-help books have endlessly promised me? What then?

I am telling you my problem seemed, to me, like a pretty big problem. Maybe to many people it seems piddly, childish, and disproportionate to whatever “real” problems they have. You might even be thinking: “That is it? That is this girl’s big problem? I can trump that in a millisecond.” Maybe you can.

Although take a moment to ask yourself why you would want to.

But let me tell you then that I have struggled for years with wondering if I am a person of talent, if I am a person who has anything to offer this world, if I can be successful in this culture where our worth as human beings is so often measured by the label on our business card or the car in our driveway.

And then I have to wonder: what is success really? Just like “problem,” it is a subjective term. I often become caught up in what I think “success” ought to look like, and I frequently feel I fall short. And why do I feel that way? Maybe because as human beings, we place so much stock in the “successes” of others as a way of either validating or nullifying our own place in life.

Life is really a lot of smoke and mirrors. No matter how great it seems others have it, consider the wisdom in that 90 year old woman’s words: it might very well be the case that those so-called “lucky” people are in possession of problems under the weight of which you might collapse. And that is why you have your specific set. That is why I have my specific set.

Now, as I wonder about my struggles with feeling “successful,” with my fears of letting out my inner self to a resounding echo of nothing, I realize that my problems are mine for a reason. They might even be pretty good problems comparatively. And so, I am choosing to look at them as an opportunity.

That being said, I am now redefining what “success” means to me, and it is proving a new hill for me to climb. It is difficult to cut out the extraneous noise of the world that wants to tell me what is “good” or “bad,” what is “normal” or “weird,” what is “success” and what is “failure.” But I am choosing to look at my current big “problem” as a challenge, as a door opening to something new and wonderful.

As I allowed myself to reframe my specific issue, the truth became clear fairly quickly. The truth is that I am writing for myself, because I love it and it is my passion. That alone, without anyone else’s opinion or validation, makes my pursuit a success.

How ironic: I love my problem. Without it, I would not be feeling the way I feel right now. And how do I feel? Like a success.

So now, I invite you to take your biggest, looming, issue and just for one day, for one week, or even just for one hour re-frame it as a positive entity. I hope you will try it. We all deserve to be successes. And, as I look at you from my new place on the hill, I can promise you that we all already are. It is just a matter of perspective.