In my earlier interactions with young people, I realized some thing that youngsters were not being taught or trained, neither at schools nor at universities. It was handling problems. These youngsters included my students, sons and daughters of relatives or people I knew, young university graduates, trainees, young executives who had started jobs recently or were still looking for those. The age group ranging from 16 to 24 I guessed.
After a two or more years of work with grown ups and by that I mean 30 plus years of age, I realized that I was wrong to say that for youngsters. A significant proportion of grownups even did not know how to handle problems appropriately. And this stands true today as well.
We are not well trained mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually at handling problems.
We do not know the right words to say to ourselves and to others when we find ourselves facing problems.
We do not know the first step at where to begin solving them.
We do not know what to do if we fail initially at the steps taken.
We do not know to what extent we should share those with others and to what extent try to handle them ourselves.
We do not know simply how to handle problems.
The first step to handle problems is to stop hating them. We all hate problems. We literally dislike them. We run away miles from any thing that even seems us to put us in any discomfort. And I am not writing about having to live in Guantanamo bay or facing a stage three carcinoma or a divorce. I am talking about everyday problems we face from our car break down to delays in assignments, from a hard word with an upset sibling to a work leave not approved.
The second step is to accept them. This comes to a logical question: how we accept a problem? Take a pause and refuse to react immediately. Take a deep breath and start to think from another view. Everything we face in this world has a cause-effect relationship behind it. Most of our problems we face are because we ignore the cause. I once heard at a dry cleaning shop a woman, who was complaining about the service. She said, “This is the third time you have spoiled my dress”. And the thought immediately struck to my head, “wasn’t once enough for a warning?”
I was once in touch with a real estate agent who had always problems in closing a deal. Either his clients ( one of the buying or selling party) would not respond or would not reach in time or would simply stop responding at the last hour of signing the agreement. He requested me to help and the first question I asked him revealed the situation: ” Do you ever verify your clients financial strength for the said proposition?” No was the answer.
A little different view to your problems reveals some thing missing from our practices. Most of the times it is us who are creating problems for our own selves but do not take the time to look deeply into them. We instead choose to blame an entire world for them, not to mention God. ( continued)