View Your Life as a Classroom
No matter how much you advance and evolve as a spiritual being, you will never get to a point where you are completely free of problems, challenges and disappointments. The good news is that we are probably not even meant to get to such a stage in this life, and it is far more likely that the problems we encounter exist for a purpose. When you choose to view your life as a classroom you will be a lot more open to learning the lessons that life delivers on a daily basis, and as you learn, the more effectively you will be able to deal with whatever comes your way.
This is not a new concept by any means. The Buddha said that ‘Life is suffering’ and when you consider the fact that problems and disappointments never cease, he was absolutely right. But by learning from our experience, we can transform even ‘negative’ events into ones which foster our growth as human beings. Our suffering therefore becomes a path to personal growth, spiritual evolution and inner peace.
Everyone reading this article has had many different problems and challenges throughout life, and you will all continue to have problems and challenges in the future. So why make things even harder for yourself by trying to escape this fact? Why not instead accept the reality of problems and view your life a classroom which exists to teach you exactly what you need to learn, in exactly the right way and at exactly the right time?
The nature of the problems we encounter in day to day life obviously varies quite widely. On some days your biggest problem might be that you get caught up in traffic or that your internet connection goes down. On other days you may face problems of a more serious kind – the loss of a job, the breakdown of a relationship or even the death of someone close to you. Whatever the nature of the problems you encounter, you can begin to learn from them by pausing to consider the following question:
What can I learn from this?
Your answers to this simple question can be as varied as the problems that are encountered. You might spill juice on your computer keyboard, in which case the lesson is quite obvious – don’t have liquids around electrical equipment that you value. Or you might receive news that someone close to you has died, in which case the lessons can be multiple and much more meaningful – live each day as if it were your last, resolve differences while you can, learn to love more than you fight, and so on.
Whatever answers come to you when you ask the question ‘What can I learn from this?’ be sure to pay attention and heed the lesson presented. Some problems occur repeatedly only because we refuse to learn our lesson the first time round. Viewing your life as a classroom and actively looking for the lesson that is hidden in every problem you encounter will enable you to grow and evolve at a pace that is ideally suited to you.
