Problems are just a part of life.

There is nothing you can do to never have a problem ever again. In fact, I believe that true happiness can only happen if you HAVE the occasional problem.

As Agent Smith told Neo in the Matrix

“Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization.”

Now this is spoken as a computer program that despises humans, so don’t take it all at its word. Certainly we don’t need to suffer in misery, but we do need to have a road block every once in a while. We need the ‘bad’ to know what the ‘good’ is in our lives. No pleasure without pain. No success without failures. No life without death.

Problems are not problems, just another challenge to us to become a better person. Problems can teach us to be kind, tolerant, patient, and humble.

We need challenges. We need to be tested.

Otherwise we become complacent.

Now I’m not saying to go out and make more problems for yourself, as I see so many people do. No, I only ask you to change the way you approach them. If you see each new problem as a challenge, as a chance to succeed at it, you won’t become unhappy every time one comes your way.

However, if you see each and every problem as a battle for survival then I can tell that your life is full of worry. Even if you have no current problems, you fear for the next and therefore won’t let yourself be happy.

These negative thoughts will be manifested in your life. Like is drawn to like. Poor thinking habits keep you poor. In life. In happiness. In money. You can work as hard as you can, but without conquering your mental habits you won’t ever get a leg up.

Think of it as the food you eat every day. Your thoughts are the ingredients you have to work with. Whatever you think about all day will be all that you have to eat.

These meals are no ordinary meals, however. It is you. It is your emotional, social, and financial life.

What you think is what you eat every day. To put it another way, what you think is what you will become.

That’s great! It means that anyone can change the ingredients of their meals, even if they are in a bad place in life, by changing their mental outlook. It’s simple, but it’s not easy.

Change Your Mindset

To begin to see your problems not as numerous struggles but as ways to succeed try asking yourself a few questions.

How is this a test? Why did this problem enter my life? How is the best way to approach it? What could this do to my life if I overcome it?

The Buddhists have a practice called “making difficulties into the path.”They say that if we use all our trials, all our fears, all our disappointments that we have already faced in life, just think of all the fuel we’ll have for the journey!

They have a prayer that goes like this: “Grant that I may be given appropriate difficulties and sufferings on this journey so that my heart may be truly awakened and my practice of liberation and universal compassion be truly fulfilled.”

So stop worrying about problems as they are inevitable. See them as ways to strengthen yourself. See them as fuel for the journey of life.

There is no better fuel than a good meal.