Chapter 306

Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful." ~ Joshua J. Marine

This is a perspective on life that too few of us have. Most of the folks I know view challenges as a stress or a disruption. Something to be avoided or diverted, not something to be embraced and overcome. But most challenges in life can only be avoided or diverted so long and then they have to be faced like it or not. Or overcome.

Before we get carried away here, I don’t think Marine means “challenges” here in the sense of you and me overclocking our schedules and we having a “challenge” to shove everything in that we have planned for the day. That is juggling too many plates and you need to make some executive decisions, and get some of those plates out of the air. The executive decision part could perhaps qualify as a challenge, but plate juggling will never lead to meaningful. 

Challenges are persistent puzzles that require and demand resolution. And everyone has them at a small personal scale. Its the bigger scaled challenges of world-changing proportions that I am hoping grabs your attention and energy. Anyone can and does overcome their personal challenges, and wise people raise the bar each year, so that the challenges can get more difficult and we can grow and develop as we overcome them. But I want you to get beyond you yourself for a change, and see the wider deeper challenges of the world. 

Yes these seem impossible to overcome, but that is why they are important and why they bring the most meaning to life that you could ever imagine.