Turning Disaster into Opportunity

Life in itself can be very mercurial and daunting. Sometimes, people who seem as though they least need difficulty in life receive beat down after beat down. As a rule, everyone in life faces struggles and challenges, and some face more struggles and challenges than others. What matters is not the struggles and challenges that people face, but what people choose to do with these struggles and challenges when they do arrive. Most people, it seems, become overwhelmed and are pushed down in life because they are not ready to deal with the challenges they have been served. Some are able to overcome and lead reasonably happy lives, while a rare few know how to take almost any seemingly disastrous situation and turn it into a tremendous positive.

Take a look at the life of a social anxiety and generalized anxiety sufferer like myself, for example. I could have decided to simply stay home alone and pout and cry, "Why me?" And I did for a while. But, that grew old, so I decided to start moving out into the world and seeing what the heck it is that I could do with my life. I have taken very many seemingly disastrous situations and turned them into a positive.

The one that is most relevant here, of course, is my difficulty with anxiety. Now that I feel that I can handle pretty much everything that is thrown my way on my own, I feel that it is a good time for me to move out into the world and help other people who are overwhelmed by anxiety. Even though it is just in its beginning stages, I have developed a website and talked on other internet forums with many other anxiety sufferers. I have had the fortunate opportunity to help other people who are in need, and this is what drives me the most. Nothing is more exciting and gratifying than helping someone overcome the anxiety that is holding them back from experiencing and having all that they need in life. The other way that I have been able to turn anxiety into a positive is that it has given me the opportunity to publicly write articles concerning something that I am very passionate about. It has not led to any stellar opportunities yet, but it has helped me to make some pretty decent pocket cash and also to show off my writing skills to other people.

I just wanted to give this example because I believe that it is this way with everything in life. When some sort of challenge is presented to us, we simply need to figure out how we can make the best of it. Sometimes, and this was certainly true in my case, it is necessary to enlist the help of others. Having to figure one's own way out of a tangled mess of a problem can sometimes be impossible, or at the very least difficult. Having the help of another person who has already been there and done that is always beneficial.

In regard to anxiety, almost any situation in one's life can be turned into an opportunity to reduce one's anxiety. If a coworker is being obnoxious and causing one undue stress at work, then this is the opportunity for one to begin to learn assertiveness skills and let that person know what he or she is doing is not okay (a great anxiety reducer!). If one's job is very stressful because of its increasingly important responsibilities, then this is the opportunity for that person to become comfortable and confident with these new responsibilities. This usually translates into increased salary for that person as well!

What about a boss or person in power above the anxious person who is a jerk and serves only to make that person's life more miserable? Learning to function in this situation is a life skill as well. People in power who are abusive towards those they supervise are a part of life, unfortunately, and dealing with these people effectively is a great skill to have.

The point is that very few situations exist where there is nothing to be gained. Sometimes, it is not very obvious that a particular situation can do one any good, but this means that a closer level of observation and analysis is required. To all those who there who are suffering seemingly pointlessly, please keep this article in mind!