Life is not a bed of roses. Everyone has to face ups and downs in his/her life. In true sense, without challenges and failures, one cannot taste the true flavor of success and life. Its lot easier to crib about the difficulties, to play a blame game and to procrastinate, but a lot more difficult to accept the things and life at their face value and try to make efforts or endeavors to convert hardships and odds into your favor.
It’s rightly said, “Life is just manifestation of the choices and reaction to situations”. According to me, challenges and difficulties are there everywhere, but its perception and its handling zeal make a person either vulnerable or resistant to it. Challenges are very subjective and diverse. There is no universal standard to measure or quantify it. I have faced many challenges in my life. The list encompasses stammering to violent face off with bully.
In my childhood, I have the habit of stammering. Needless to say, I was bashed, mocked and ridiculed for the same by my friends and to some extent teachers as well. In those days, fortunately, I was advised by my mother to practice in front of the mirror and think for a while before speaking. Along with it, she started giving me the practice to read and recite the passages from newspaper and novels. Currently, I do stammer but its frequency has significantly reduced. In the above-said situation, I took no external coaching. The transformation came through my dedication, self-belief, and constant practice.
In recent times, I have faced lots of difficulties in terms of interacting with people and dealing with them. Introverts find it difficult to start a conversation and to establish a connection with people. Communication gap and misunderstandings further exaggerated the problem. During my first job, I was made to share my room with a person, who was just opposite to me. He was a smoker and I was having an allergy to smoke. He was quite a stubborn and wicked person. He makes sure to trouble me at every possible chance he lays his hands upon. The remedy which I applied in the initial phase was to complain and crib but it backfired me. He even became more adamant to disturb me. After having constant tussles and heated talks with him, I decided to ignore the person. To my dismay, at starting it was a lot difficult for me to adjust to his careless and filthy attitude. I started adopting ‘ignorance’ as the style of conflict management. The one good thing, which happened amidst all the chaos, was my patience quotient increased.
Though it was not the right way to deal with the problem, yet it solved many internal issues of mine. I realized that sometimes it is wise to let go of certain things and embrace internal peace. The chaos on a daily basis sometimes needs time, space and silence.