This morning I received an email from a work colleague asking for some inspiration. Though not explicit in her request, I sensed that it had something to do with her husband who has been going through a rough time this past week.
So anyways, I continued with my usual morning ritual before heading into work, intending on responding to the email when I arrived at work.
Now before I left for work something peculiar happened.
I picked up “The Perfect Mirror” by Adrian Feldmann and started reading from where I had last left off. It’s interesting that I should pick up the book today after not having touched it in over a week. What’s more bizarre is that the first passage I read focused on problems, and it was almost as if the passage was a direct response to my colleague’s husband’s situation.
Here’s the passage from the book:
Instead of being obstacles to happiness, the things that go wrong in life, which we usually react to with sadness, anxiety, or anger, can become sources of happiness. The key to this magical transformation is knowing that, just as rain is a curse for picknickers but a blessing for farmers, it is our self-oriented outlook that determines whether something is a problem or not. If we always react to difficulties with self-centred aversion and continue to blame the external world for our troubles, things will always appear to be against us and we will never be free from sadness, anxiety and anger.
To not be disturbed by problems, we must first reject the attitude of not wanting things to go wrong.
Now perhaps I’m reading too much into it, and maybe it’s just a simple case of coincidence. Or maybe it’s synchronicity. Whatever it is, I’ve been noticing a lot of these meaningful coincidences lately.
Anyways I digress. I did end up forwarding that passage to my colleague.
Problems are indeed opportunities and if we view them as such, and at the same time consciously remove emotion from the equation, then we can really begin to move forward and live much more happier lives.