When Presented with Obstacles...

     There's a sign that hangs in our office welcoming visitors to our Career and Technical Education Department and at the bottom of the sign we have our motto inscribed which reads, "When presented with obstacles, may we only see opportunities to improve." If everyone could just look at obstacles, barriers, adversities, or even afflictions in this way, we would all be headed up the hill of having a growth mindset and never sink down into the realm of self-pity, bitterness, and eventual hopelessness. Some would say that seeing adversity as a positive is much easier to say than to do, but I would counter back with, it may be easier to say than to do, but the payoff for facing adversity in this manner is so much more rewarding.
     I would tell you that looking at obstacles in life as opportunities to improve has a great deal to do with how I approach life and it has been a rewarding approach in my eyes. When I was named the new Career & Technical Education Supervisor for Hamblen County Schools I was presented with the following question and or similar statements about leaving Union Heights Elementary Schools as the principal there. "I guess you'll be glad that you don't have to worry with the parents anymore?" or
"Now you won't have to deal with all of those teachers and problems anymore." To which I would reply, "No I'll miss that part of my job at Union Heights as well." Glutton for punishment? No, I just enjoyed problem solving and working out solutions to issues with the best interest of everyone involved being my driving force. Does that mean that when someone entered my office huffing and puffing mad over something that had happened to their child, I was tickled pink? Well, if I answered yes to that nobody would believe me, so let's just say my satisfaction was when at the end of one of those type meetings, we both shook hands, agreed to agree or even disagree, and I could say I had just added another positive outcome to my tool belt of success. Those tools enable me to do my job today, equipped with experiences of what has worked in the past and also what didn't work so well along the way. The key is that whatever the situation, no matter if the outcome went my way or not, I had learned some new knowledge about myself, my strengths, and my areas that I needed to work on and improve. You can apply this same mindset to pretty much any area of your personal or professional life. The key is that whatever the situation, you look at it as an opportunity to improve yourself and the lives of as many people that you "touch" each day!
     Think about the song that Kelly Clarkson made famous "What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger", there exisits a whole philosophical perspective on life with this same type of outlook in mind. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche touted this adage praising the benefits of being resilient in facing the fires of life. For me, the whole concept of embracing adversity has enabled me to overcome and endure a great number of life matters, and yes I would say that I was the beneficiary of each of those experiences. Someone out there is reading this saying, "Yeah, but you don't know what I've been through, and if you did you wouldn't be so excited about enduring what I am dealing with in life." You know what, you're exactly right, and I would tell you that you don't know what I've been thru either. Everyone has their "cross" to bear as the saying goes, so what you have to bear and what I have to bear are different and can come at all different levels of intensity or severity, but at the end of the day, it is your obstacle in life and you have to overcome it!
     I love to read biographies or even better are autobiographies on men and women that have turned their adversity into the very thing that propelled the person into the spotlight or provided them the platform by which their success was achieved. I think of Helen Keller, blind, deaf, and mute, yet when she unlocked the world of silence that she was trapped in as a child, she went on to learn multiple languages, motivate and encourage people around the world, and lived an extremely independent life for someone in her position at this point in history. Then there's the story of Rob Mendez, a junior varsity football coach in San Jose that was born with a rare disorder which caused him to be born with no arms or legs. A football coach you say?? Coach Mendez says "Who says I can't?" The condition he was born with didn't kill him so he decided to let it make him stronger. The list goes on and on so when you want to say, "Well you don't know what I am going thru" just remember, I probably don't, but you don't know what your neighbor is or has endured and through the process has used the obstacle to fuel their passion and desire to succeed in life. 
     In the guidebook for perseverance and resiliency there are so many scriptures about enduring and overcoming obstacles in your life for support and encouragement as you face your own set of life obstacles. I'm going to close today's FTM with this aptly paired scripture found in James 1:2-4 "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." As I stated earlier, I don't claim to know the depth or breadth of your life's complications or situations that you have had to endure, but I do know without a shadow of a doubt that if you will buckle in, strap up, dig in, and fasten your life's chin strap then you are definitely headed in the right direction. I may not know what you have endured and I certainly don't know what you are currently facing, yet I know that I can pray that God will give you the strength you need to not only endure life's obstacles, but that He will give you the strength and the tools you will need to overcome and succeed in life! Sound too simplistic to be true? Trust and believe, and see what can happen in today!
Coach Carter