Challenges

What do we do when it seems like everything is crashing around us? Clients are relapsing. New managers are showing their inexperience. People are going to jobsites without the proper equipment, such as helmets and safety glasses. Everyone has the idea that someone else is responsible - other than them. Staff members are getting sick. Others are having emotional meltdowns.

Today it seems like the planets aligned the wrong way. It was a day when I thought the best solution might be to book a flight to a beach in Mexico and let someone else sort these situations out. But of course, those are the fantasies I sometimes use to counter stress.

What I really do is practice what I preach. When things go awry, I tell myself that everything in God's world is exactly as it's supposed to be at this moment. Do I arrive at this point of acceptance immediately? Of course not. It takes some beating my head on the situation before I realize that there might be an opportunity in all of these challenges.

I changed my thinking when I glanced at the front page of a newspaper. There was a picture of a group of civilians in the Syrian capital. They were running in terror, trying to get away from the explosions and bullets behind them. At that moment I realize that there is nothing in my life that compared with what these people were going through.

I became grateful for the challenges I face today.