The Benefits of Misfortune

Dibawah ini adalah tulisan dari John Kehoe, pakar Mind Power, tentang manfaat dari ketidakberuntungan.

Memang betul apa yang dikatakannya bahwa seringkali ketidakberuntungan mendatangkan perubahan, membuat kita berubah. Terlepas dari bagaimana kesialan itu datang, tetap saja ada peluang untuk kebijaksanaan (wisdom) dan kesempatan.

Rasa nyaman adalah musuh dari perubahan. Jika semuanya berjalan lancer, kita cenderung untuk bersikap statis. Manfaat dari kesialan seringkali tidak jelas. Dibutuhkan kejelian dan kesabaran untuk mengenali makna dari setiap ketidak beruntungan.

Namun, saya pribadi berpendapat sedikit berbeda dengan John Kehoe. Sebelum menerima semua kesialan yang kita hadapi, perlu kiranya kita memilah dulu tentang kesialan itu:

• Yang bisa diprediksi dan dicegah
• Yang diluar control kita.

Untuk yang bisa dicegah, kita tidak harus mengalaminya. Misalnya darah tinggi, hindari makan garam berlebihan supaya jangan sampai terjadi stroke. Kalau sudah kena stroke, lebih banyak ruginya daripada benefit yang bisa kita dapatkan.

Kankerpun bisa dicegah dengan mengatur makanan. Tapi, bila dengan usaha yang sungguh sungguh tetap memiliki kanker, ya sudah hadapi dengan optimis. Tetaplah hindari hal hal yang bisa memperparah keadaan seperti stress, makanan yang dibakar sampai muncul kerak arangnya (sate bakar, ikan bakar), daging merah, dsb.

Bagaimanapun juga kita tetap harus bersyukur atas apapun yang menimpa kita, yang baik maupun yang buruk. Selama kita melihatnya dari persektif yang benar, akan selalu bisa kita ambil manfaatnya.

Sukses buat Anda semua.

Salam, eka wartana

The Benefits of Misfortune

Nobody ever wants misfortune to come their way. It is much more pleasant and enjoyable to experience success, health, good fortune and a fun and interesting life all the time, where everything unfolds exactly as we’d like it to, but life doesn’t happen that way. And we’re fortunate that it doesn’t. Each life will have a mixture of fortune and misfortune, pleasant and unpleasant experiences, successes and failures, and each of these things has their value and role in our life.

As followers of mind power, as most of you on this website are, you know the value of using your thoughts, beliefs and intentions to create a successful and happy life. But do you know how to gain benefit from misfortune, to have it be a positive force in your life?

Misfortune can come in many different ways. It may be a serious illness, the loss of a job, a failure in a project you’ve worked long and hard at, a marriage breakup, a financial bankruptcy where you are obliged to start over, a family crisis. Whatever form it takes it will be unpleasant and perhaps shake you to your core, making you doubt everything, and this is good. It is from this doubt and despair that something new can birth itself, and with this birth you have the opportunity to gain something very valuable from your misfortune.

Each negative circumstance of our life carries with it wisdom and opportunities, no matter how horrific the misfortune may seem at the time. The one thing you can be sure of is that misfortune always demands a change. These changes may not always be what we’d planned, but suddenly we’re thrust into unknown waters and swimming for our life. These changes may not be pleasant, but almost always they are leading us to something good.

Movement and change is the way of the universe. We often forget this and crave stability, but the only constant in our life is constant change. Often we get too comfortable in our habits; we fall into a rut, as it is probably a comfortable rut. Comfort is the enemy of change.

We never make changes when things are going well. When we are too comfortable in our routines we stagnate. Misfortune is a wonderful device for getting us to notice where we are being complacent or out of alignment. Misfortune forces us to re-assess what is important to us and what is not. It lets us shift our perspective, as we are forced to shift our perspective in order to come to grips with the reality that now faces us.

Misfortune also deepens us. When we feel our own vulnerability we can feel others too. We see the human condition differently, develop compassion and understanding. This not only deepens us; it also enriches us. There is a strange and wonderous spaciousness that happens when misfortune comes our way, a spaciousness that allows us to see and feel the richness of simple everyday things like the buds on a spring maple, or a sunset, or the sound of children playing. In these moments we realize how rich and full our lives are, even with this misfortune.

Misfortune carries with it benefits that are not always obvious. If you are going through some misfortune right now, embrace it while it is here, for it too will pass and change into something else. But before it passes make sure to extract all the benefits that it is giving you. If you do it will be a catalyst to a deeper, richer, more full and happy life.

John Kehoe