“The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.” -Theodore I. Rubin

There are times when things get complicated and it has nothing to do with the choices we’ve made.

Sometimes everyone around us needs us for different things, right as our work is becoming more challenging, and we’re feeling confused about what we actually want to do with our lives.

Sometimes we receive medical or psychiatric diagnoses—and possibly both at the same time—right after being laid off and losing our health insurance.

Sometimes we feel we’ve made headway with emotional wounds from the past, only to find ourselves feeling challenged by the smallest of triggers and uncertain if we’ve made any progress at all.

Try as we may to eliminate the debt, responsibility, unhealthy relationships, and anything else that may cause us stress, life may never be simple.

We may always have different challenges to address in our lives. But maybe simplicity isn’t eliminating problems; maybe it’s learning to embrace them, face them, and grow from them, instead of seeing them as something to resist.

Perhaps “simple” has nothing to do with the circumstances in our lives, and everything to do with the mindset we foster in accepting and responding to them.

There are certain problems that need solutions more quickly than others. There are certain events that may seem more overwhelming than others.

We can either approach these situations with a sense of dread and anxiety, assuming we have no choice but to respond this way; or we can find our center, take it all one step at a time, and recognize that whatever happens, we can handle it and learn from it.

We can’t change that life will be complex at times, but we can cause ourselves a lot less pain by accepting that, instead of fighting it, questioning it, and wishing we could change it.

Life will inevitably involve challenges; and sometimes they’ll work in our favor. Problems allow us to create, innovate, and stretch both ourselves and the world we know.

The question isn’t whether life will ever be simple; it’s whether we’ll recognize all the opportunities within the complexities and find the strength to seize them.

What problem will you embrace today?

Photo by Paralog

“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” -Friedrich Nietzsche

Recently, a blogger I admire wrote a long note on a social media site identifying blogging practices he finds annoying—and referring to bloggers who utilize them as “fundamentally wrong.” Some of them are things I also choose not to do, but not all of them.

As I read through his list of “blogging mistakes,” recognizing some of them here, I found myself getting defensive. I thought it was wrong of him to call other bloggers fundamentally wrong, implying everything he chooses to do is right, and then I realized the irony.

I was making him wrong for making me wrong. How was I any different?

I shared this story with a friend of mine, and she told me that sometimes, it is black and white. She said we sometimes need to identify other people as wrong, because this is how we learn what we believe to be right—which is a precursor to acting on it.

What I realized amid all of this is that there is a difference between identifying something as right, and identifying it as right for you. And most often, what matters is that we do the latter.

When you believe something is right, you may be tempted to tell other people what they should and shouldn’t do. When you believe something is right for you, you honor that belief, but accept what other people choose to do without feeling the need to negate it.

When you believe something is right, you may be tempted to judge other people if they don’t support your belief. When you believe something is right for you, you realize it isn’t a threat when someone else thinks differently.

When you believe something is right, you may be tempted to fight for it. When you believe something is right for you, you feel at peace whether someone else agrees with you or not.

And now again, a little irony: clearly I believe it’s right to understand that what’s right for you might not be right for everyone. This feels right for me because it helps me understand and accept people while taking care of my own needs.

What do you believe is right when it comes to identifying other people as wrong?

Photo by jumpinjimmyjava

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” -Henry David Thoreau

Yesterday while driving home from the dentist, I listened to this CD my boyfriend made with theme songs from various movies.

While I generally would rather do a low crawl down a muddy sidewalk than sit in LA traffic, I couldn’t have been more blissful lost in the tunes of my favorite films.

I noticed something interesting during this peaceful drive.

While listening to The Pirates of the Caribbean theme song, I recognized all kinds of exciting things happening around me. This kid did a Back to the Future-style skateboard jump while crossing the street at the walk signal; and several yards away in the park, I saw a group of girls doing back flips. I realize these events aren’t as riveting as Johnny Depp escaping death, but in that moment, I felt their energy.

After the light turned green, I switched to the Forrest Gump theme song, and noticed numerous poignant moments in the moving picture outside my window—a little boy running and jumping into his mother’s arms, and a woman bending down to help a homeless man on the sidewalk. With the simple change of a song, I felt transported to a Lifetime special.

Suddenly I wondered: How often did the soundtrack in my head dictate what I chose to see?

At any given moment, there’s a lot of life happening around us. It’s far too much to take in all at once, which means we need to consciously choose where we place our attention—and how we perceive the things that we allow to hold our focus.

This is usually influenced by our mental state. When we’re angry, we’re more apt to find people annoying. When we’re hurt, people can seem insensitive. And when we’re happy, all of a sudden, the world seems like a kind and beautiful place.

Essentially, we narrate the world based on our moods, just like those pithy voiceovers, usually delivered by Morgan Freeman.

But there is another way to go about it—we can instead create our moods by consciously choosing to see the good around us. It’s always there. It’s just a matter of whether or not we’re willing to look and see.

Photo by The Wandering Angel

“As long as you make an identity for yourself out of pain, you cannot be free of it.” -Eckhart Tolle

This weekend, a reader presented an interesting question about letting go of old beliefs and attitudes to make room for happiness and open up to a relationship.

He suggested that this would require a lot of sacrifice on his part, and would leave him humbled and lost—as if he’s somehow “giving in” and losing touch with who he really is.

He asked how he can reconcile the instinct to change with his resistance to becoming something he is not.

I suspect a lot of us struggle with this. We know we want to transform our lives, but we’ve thought and behaved in certain ways for so many years that we identify ourselves with those ideas and actions.

For a long time, I believed people were basically selfish, which made me feel constantly defensive. I thought I “earned” this belief because I had been hurt. Letting go of it felt like letting the people who’d hurt me off the hook—like saying they didn’t cause my pain, I did.

But the reality was that my defensiveness hurt me more than anything anyone else had ever done—and for far longer. Sacrificing it might have been humbling, but the alternative was (and is) to sacrifice my potential for joy.

We are not the beliefs that we, at one point, decided serve and protect us. We are not the thoughts that, if we’re honest, only cripple us. We are not the sum of our internal workings.

Of course letting go of these will feel like giving in if we believe they define us. It will feel like a sort of death—like acknowledging there’s something wrong with us, and the only way to find happiness is to essentially rid ourselves of ourselves.

Freedom is realizing that letting go isn’t losing anything—it’s gaining everything. It’s stepping into the present moment free from limiting thoughts, beliefs, memories, fears, and judgments, to see what’s in front of us with clear eyes.

We have the potential to become anything—in fact, if we learn to let go, we will never stop becoming. But that means we need to want presence and happiness more than we want to cling to the past and our pain.

Photo by Aschaf

“Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.” -Dalai Lama

Opportunity often hides in the most unlikely places, but it isn’t easy to see it when you’re disappointed life didn’t meet your expectations.

Michael Jordan’s high school coach cut him from the basketball team, which may have pushed him to work harder and become an NBA superstar. Soichoro Honda wanted to be an engineer at Toyota until he was rejected, inspiring him to start his own company.

You never know when a disappointment might pave the path for something great. What wonderful stroke of luck have you had lately, and what can you do to benefit from it?

This post was originally published in September, 2009. Photo by LisaRoxy.

“Instead of complaining that the rose bush is full of thorns, be happy the thorn bush has roses.” -Proverb

I once read that people who journal to identify lessons from painful situations generally move on more quickly and easily than people who write merely to vent their emotions.

In discovering opportunities for growth, we empower ourselves to see whatever we’ve been through as something that can be ultimately beneficial, even if it’s tremendously uncomfortable in the short-term.

It’s not always easy to do that, particularly because there are so many things that happen that we may never understand—and plenty of events that seem downright unfair.

Why do some people retain their health despite poor choices, while others wake up seriously ill one day with no reason or warning? Why do some people enjoy great fortune without having to expel much effort, while others struggle all their lives without ever enjoying rewards or stability?

When you look at the world through this lens, it’s easy to be bitter. We want there to be order—to know that if we’re good, good things will happen, and bad things won’t. But that’s just not a guarantee.

What is a guarantee is that we can always decide how to interpret what we see.

Over the past two years, countless readers have submitted posts for this site, many of them sharing stories about overcoming sickness and loss, among other personal challenges.

There’s nothing as inspiring as seeing the world through the eyes of someone who is determined to see something good.

After a blood vessel ruptured in Brian Webb’s brain, he couldn’t walk for months—but after running his first marathon he realized his injury taught him to appreciate life.

Brandy Harris renamed her Crohn’s Disease “Crohn’s Teacher,” and uses her feelings about her symptoms as fuel for writing and sketching.

Alexander Heather Foss decided that there’s beauty in her scars—that her past struggles contributed to the strong, wise woman she is today.

Life is always going to contain a little darkness, but we get to decide whether or not we recognize and appreciate the light.

Photo by PrescottFoland

“It is not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.” -Unknown

Have you ever felt a strong instinct to say no to something—but then said yes anyway? I did this a few months back, when someone contacted me on behalf of a bestselling self-help author, asking me to promote his book.

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, I love sharing books that have made a difference in my life. And I generally choose which ones to feature based on a genuine desire to introduce them to you.

When this author’s marketing team contacted me this summer, asking if I’d help make his book a bestseller—without offering to send me a copy—I felt a strong resistance. It felt too much like a business arrangement to engender my earnest support.

Based on what I read about this writer online, I ascertained his book would be a valuable resource, so I agreed to share it—despite only receiving three chapters in a PDF.

As the time got closer, I recognized I wasn’t operating with complete integrity, and ultimately decided to renege. His team sent me a number of angry emails, letting me know the author is “the real deal” and that there was no one else on the planet like him, sharing what he’s learned.

When I recognized the high-pressure, fanatical tone, I instantly felt I’d made the right decision—not because there’s anything wrong with the book or the author, but because the circumstances themselves did not feel right for me.

Ironically, I’d done something I’ve written about before: I made a decision based on value attribution—meaning I assumed I should say yes solely because the author is established and renowned.

In a world where influence is king, we all need to be mindful of how and why we’re swayed if we hope to make decisions for ourselves, based on what we feel is right for us.

This is particularly pertinent when it comes to how we spend our money, as there will always be a groundbreaking new system, or a life-changing new course, often promoted by people we admire and trust.

That’s to not to say we shouldn’t support them and we wouldn’t benefit by doing it. It’s just that we’re best equipped to help ourselves when we say yes because we actually want to—not because we think we should.

Photo by jamiehladky

“The future is completely open, and we are writing it moment to moment.” -Pema Chodron

A while back, a reader commented that it’s easy for me to suggest tomorrow is full of possibilities, since I am relatively young. An older woman, she believed her options were far more limited, and that even if she could do the things she wanted to do, they wouldn’t count–not at her age.

My first instinct was to start a conversation about mindfulness, since no one is ever guaranteed more than the present. Even young people don’t know for certain that they have decades more to live, so all we can ever really do is use this moment well.

But then I thought about her comment about the future not counting.

I interpreted this to mean she couldn’t enjoy the rest of her days because she felt they would somehow be defined by the “wasted” ones that had passed–like a smile wouldn’t be as joyful as it could be because there were fewer than she wanted before it, or helping someone wouldn’t be as meaningful as it could be because it wouldn’t contribute to a lifelong legacy.

It seemed like she felt that life had passed her by, even though it was still going. I could relate to that feeling. I’ve wasted many days worrying about the days I thought I wasted. It’s a vicious cycle, and it only stops when we decide to use the present to the best of our ability.

If we worry about everything we wish we did, or could do with our lives, we will miss out on the opportunity to really live them–right here and right now. Regardless of our age, we all have two things in common: we get to decide whether or not we think this moment matters; and we get to decide what exactly it means to make it count.

The present is completely open, and we are living it, right now. What do you want to make of it?

Photo by Two Roses

“Love is saying, ‘I feel differently’ instead of ‘you’re wrong.’” -Unknown

I’ve written a lot of posts about compassion these past few years, challenging both myself and readers to be open-minded and see things from others’ points of view.

On almost every post, someone has commented that there are times when other people are, in fact, wrong–when the person who cut you off in traffic really is a jerk, not just having a bad day; when the friend who hurt you actually had cruel intentions, and didn’t just make an innocent mistake; or when the person who sees things differently is truly misinformed, as opposed to holding a varied, but different opinion.

I think we sometimes fear losing our sense of self and self-respect by giving other people too much leeway. If we give the benefit of the doubt one time too many times, we may start to feel like a door mat. Or if we consider other people’s perspectives too seriously, we may risk losing the beliefs that help us make sense of the world.

If we continually refrain from identifying people as right and wrong, we may find it challenging to hold onto the ideas that feel right to us. And that can be a scary thought, particularly when many of us wrap around our identities around our beliefs and understandings.

But maybe it doesn’t have to work this way. Maybe we can define the conduct we believe to be good and kind, without assuming we know people’s intentions, thereby labeling them right or wrong when they stumble. Maybe we can decide and honor what we believe and allow other people the same freedom, choosing not to be threatened if they see things differently.

Maybe loving ourselves is feeling secure without having to convince other people we’re right; and loving other people is wanting to understand instead of wanting to tell them they’re wrong.

Today if you feel tempted to point out the err of someone’s ways or beliefs, ask yourself: Would I rather argue and create pain, or agree to disagree and maintain peace?

Photo by the gardenbuzz

“More important than the quest for certainty is the quest for clarity.” -Francois Gautier

Last week, I wrote a post about making difficult decisions, which incorporated 30 ideas from the Tiny Buddha Facebook community. The experience of writing it and reading the comments reminded me how certainty can sometimes silence our strongest instincts–when, ironically, certainty is always an illusion.

The secure job could become obsolete. The dependable friend could move away. The stable relationship could run its course.

None of the things that seem secure and safe are guaranteed to endure–not forever, or for any length of time, for that matter. The nature of life is that everything moves and changes, ebbs and flows, with beginnings, middles, and ends.

We don’t get to know what will end when. We don’t get to know how long things will last. We can play the odds, try to align ourselves with probability for maximum longevity, comfort, and ease. Or we can instead focus on the possibilities that excite us and enjoy the journey to and through them, one moment at a time.

We can either make what seems to be the best choice for minimal loss and change; or we can get clear about what we want to do with the short amount of time we have, and then embrace the unknown, with our passion as a compass, finding our way as we go.

The irony about choosing the path that seems the most certain is that it generally guarantees only one thing: that we go through life wondering how things could have been if only we weren’t so scared.

Today if you find yourself clinging to something that feels predictable and safe, ask yourself: Are these the moments I want to remember when I look back on my life some day?

Photo by kelp1966

Many years ago, when I moved to NYC in need of healing and direction, I found my way to Sonic Yoga. Founder Jonathan Fields signed the lease to launch this studio just one day before the September 11th attacks.

Like many New Yorkers at that time, he faced tremendous loss and uncertainty, but he moved forward, through his pain and fear, and built one of the most popular studios in Manhattan. I’m thrilled that I will soon have the opportunity to review his upcoming book, Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt into Fuel for Brilliance. In the meantime, I highly recommend you check out his 3-minute book trailer. It brought tears to my eyes!