How to overcome problems
No person, man or woman, knows their moral strength until they put that strength to the test; many are considered noble and worthy of respect simply because they have never been put to the test.
Helena P. Blavatsky
I can! I can!
Problems do not exist to press us down, but to test our ability to overcome them. If we don’t constantly try to find different ways to solve our problems, even in the toughest circumstances, fear will grow stronger, and along with it, our insecurity in ourselves.
Every problem has a solution, we just need to find it. What should not be sought after is a perfect and final solution. Perfect and final do not belong to this world. There are more or less good solutions that serve the purpose of enabling us to move forward; afterwards, we can improve or replace them when new problems arise, which is inevitable in the school of life.
However, it is necessary to try, to use our own strengths, to dare and not give in to fear. Failure. As in everything involving learning, it is necessary to try, make mistakes, and correct them. But how comforting it is to feel that we can, that those little forces sleeping within us begin to act! I can, I can! – something we need to constantly repeat in order to express our natural human potential.
The art of asking questions and listening to answers
It is good to ask, but it is not good to overdo it to the point where we become completely dependent on the guidance we receive from outside. It is important to know how to ask a question and first search for one or more answers ourselves. Only when none of them are satisfactory should we seek someone who can help us.
The path to true knowledge is not built on questions and answers exchanged in a dialectical game without content or results. Knowledge is serene, gradual, to allow for reflection and internal assimilation: a question is like an open door, and an answer is like something new that enters through it to become a part of our lives. We need to make room for the answer as something that brings us a valuable source of support.
Are we trying?
No one knows how to do something well at the very beginning. Everyone, including the greatest wise men and teachers, needed time for practice and learning. Everyone has tried, and we must also try, applying knowledge and making mistakes in the process. And that’s how progress is made, little by little, like anyone who consciously tries to do so. It’s not about doing something automatically or out of formality, but rather as we have set for ourselves, observing ourselves from the outside to determine if we are making mistakes or gradually becoming better despite them.
But, caution! Despite sometimes believing that we have become better – and surely we have – it doesn’t mean that we can’t revert back, repeating the same mistakes we thought we had overcome. However, there is no need to be afraid of that: if we “go back,” it just means that we haven’t mastered as many steps as we thought we had. We, or our conquest, need to be strengthened in order to become more thorough. The difference between initial mistakes and “reverting back” is that in the latter case, we pay attention to what is happening, and that is already a lot. All we need to do is persist.
Our teacher: Life!
It is fundamentally important to understand that everything that happens to us has meaning and that destiny, life, God, or whatever we call the sequence of causes and effects, is not some capricious coincidence.
In order to triumphantly overcome a trial, no matter how difficult it may seem at first, it is necessary to discover its causes, numerous causes that have led to the current state.
Knowing the causes is the first step towards finding a solution. However, knowledge alone is not enough to solve a problem. Knowledge that does not go beyond the rational can have a certain emotional effect, but it becomes futile if it does not follow the natural path that leads to action.
The second necessary step for karma to fulfill its role in shaping a person is to start taking action.
We know that we are facing A person with a specific life difficulty is struggling. We have examined possible causes. Now we need to prepare an action plan and implement it in practice. Above all, it is important to apply it in practice. It doesn’t matter that the planned plan is not ideal and does not solve the problem. It is better to make mistakes in action than to remain inactive due to fear of mistakes. Those who make mistakes, but act, learn the exercise of movement, break inertia, and face fear. And more than that, they develop intelligence with which they can gradually recognize the best and most reliable decisions.