John is a very generous and successful businessman in his late 20’s. He has a lot of thriving businesses and investments globally. People admire this man for his generosity because of his philanthropic works of sending poor kids to school to become businessmen and women someday.
Also, he’s a man of God because he lives by the Word of God in his life and leads a lot Christian communities to be closer to God. John has everything. He’s rich, popular, powerful and a good man. Everything seem to be going great for this man until one day it has been announced that a financial crisis has hit the world. Businesses are closing and people are losing jobs. John’s businesses and investments have been wiped out one by one as each day passes by. Though he has a lot of savings to survive during these hard times, the situation was so bad that he has to sell his cars , home furniture and cut off unnecessary expenses. Even though he’s having a financially hard time, he continues to finance his philanthropic works because of his love for these kids. Also, he continues to disciple the Christian communities he leads and encourages the people who have lost their jobs in these communities. Yet because of financial problems and the hardships he faces, his girlfriend left him for another guy. To make matters worse, he heard from his brothers and sister in the family that their father just passed away and, upon learning about his death, their mother had a heart attack and is in the hospital for intensive care. With all his problems on his finances, the burden of responsibility on his philanthropic works and the Christian community he leads, the news of the death of his father and the deteriorating situation of his mother, John can’t helped it but ask himself and God, “Why me?” Feeling helpless, he goes to the nearby church in his hometown to feel sorry for himself, blame God and, at the same time, pray to the same God to give him the solutions to the problems he’s facing in life.
Like John, we all have bad days. We all have experienced days where it seems like everything is not going our way. From time to time, we wake up late and miss a whole lot of important appointments, get stuck in a traffic jam, be scolded by our boss, have a big fight with a friend or someone we love and go home late not being able to eat a sumptuous dinner with our family because we’re busy catching up with deadlines. All of us have these days where we blame ourselves, the dog, other people and God. We wish we were someone or somewhere else than the situation we’re in. And ask ourselves that of all the billions of people in world, “Why me?!”
During these difficult and hard days, it’s very easy to react to life by complaining, blaming and putting on a sour face and attitude to everyone we encounter. “Besides,” we say to ourselves, “it’s human nature. It can’t be helped.” Yes, it’s true that, as human beings, to react to the stimulus in our environments is part of our nature and, in fact, has been very important in human survival.
But of equal importance is to acknowledge the fact that, of all situations we face in life, we human beings have the ability to choose how to respond.
As Viktor Frankl, a psychologist and a World War 2 death camp survivor, best said it,
“Between stimulus and response is a space.
And in that spaces between stimulus and response
is man’s freedom to choose his response.”
In other words, it’s not really what happens to us that matter but how we respond to what happens to us. Just because we are facing and experiencing difficult and hard days, it doesn’t mean that we’re compelled to blame and feel like a victim in our situation but we can choose our response. To blame, complain and feel helpless during hard times are, whether we like it or not, our conscious or unconscious choices to respond. But aside from blaming and complaining during difficult days, we can also choose to respond by being courageous, strong and solution oriented. We can choose to be proactive instead of being reactive to the different situations we face in life.
To respond reactively means to be affected by the things around us: the weather, what people think, how we feel. Reactive people let their feelings do the thinking and doing for them. They react to bad times by complaining, blaming and feeling like a victim. On the other hand, to respond proactively means to work on things we can influence and let go of the things we can’t change. It means to focus on the solution and not the problem. It means to set aside one’s feelings to do what’s more important.
In dealing with difficult day, we need to be proactive. Of course, there are a lot of things we can’t control: the economy, the government, bad news, what people think. But there are a lot of things we can control too to like our attitude, how we see things and, more importantly, how we respond to difficult times. By choosing to be proactive than reactive, we choose to acknowledge that as human beings we’re capable of transcending the circumstances we face in life. Because if we choose consciously or unconsciously to be more reactive, we are no different from animals which are incapable of rational thought. To live a meaningful quality life means to choose to be proactive. It means to choose to transcend difficult days and choose life.
John, despite of all the problems he’s facing in life, felt a sense of peace and relief. He knows that he has financial problems and the burden of responsibility of taking care of the people he loves and it’s going to be hard. But he also know that despite all of these hard and difficult times, he has in him all that he needs to face these and that is the ability to choose his response. He decides from then on to face these difficult times with courage. Oh yes, he has problems left and right but it doesn’t matter because it’s how respond to these problems which is important. John chooses to respond to these difficult days by choosing life.
So should you.
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