Choose your response to difficult times

When things happen to us we have two options. We can choose to react to them, or we can choose to respond to them. You may think there is no difference between the two choices, but there is a big difference. If your doctor gives you a prescription and tells you to come back in a week, and when you go back you complain about the side effects, the doctor will say you have had a reaction to the medicine and change the medication But, if you go back and you are feeling better the doctor will say you are responding well to the medication. Reacting is bad; responding is good.

Well-known minister, Chuck Swindoll, wrote that the longer he lived the more he realized the impact attitude has on our lives. He said he was convinced that life is 10 percent of what happens to us and 90 percent of how we respond to it. The key, he wrote, is that we are in charge of our attitudes.

In concentration camp survivor Viktor Frankl's amazing book Man's Search for Meaning, he told of the men in the housing units who went around comforting others and sharing their last pieces of bread. These individuals taught Frankl that "everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

We cannot control everything that comes into our lives. Every one of us will experience difficult challenges at various times. Right now, for some, it's financial challenges as they suddenly lost their jobs, and, perhaps, their employer decided not to reopen. For others, it's health issues. It might be family or relational problems. For many recent graduates, they are facing a tough job market and wonder how they will find employment.

These are tough challenges with no quick and easy solutions in many cases. While it might take time to resolve the problem, one thing we can do immediately is decide what our attitude will be towards the problem. We can let it get us down and give up, or we can decide to work towards a solution and overcome it. Swindoll is right. Our attitude makes all the difference in the world, and we can always choose our attitude.

I have to admit that I've not always taken the positive approach to my problems. My personality type is such that I can fall into the gloom-and-doom perspective rather easily. I can get down on myself and want to give up at times. That means I have to work extra hard at maintaining a positive approach, but when I do that things seem to go much better. Problems gets resolved faster, and there's a lot less wear and tear.

Choosing to stay positive in a negative situation isn't easy, but it is possible. The next time a problem crops up will you react to it or respond to it? The choice is yours.