One Choice That Will Change Your Life

This evening I met a friend at a local bar. She brought her laptop along so she could show me some of her latest digital art designs. As we chatted and scrolled¹ through her artwork, the laptop suddenly started making an unhealthy buzzing noise, then the screen flickered² on and off and then cut off completely. And as we both stared at one another in dismay, the funky³ smell of fried computer circuits consumed our nostrils⁴.

I grabbed the laptop off the bar to inspect it and the problem instantly revealed itself. The bottom of the laptop was soaking wet and an empty, spilt water glass rested against the side of her purse just behind where the laptop was sitting. In the midst of us chatting and shifting the laptop’s 17 inch screen back and forth⁵, we somehow spilt a glass of water that the bartender had inadvertently placed behind the screen, which was out of our view.

When life throws us nasty curveballs like this, it typically doesn’t make any sense to us, and our natural emotional reaction might be to get extremely upset and scream obscenities at the top of our lungs. But how does this help our dilemma⁶? Obviously, it doesn’t.

The smartest, and oftentimes hardest, thing we can do in these kinds of situations is to be more tempered in our reactions. To want to scream obscenities, but to wiser and more disciplined than that. To remember that emotional rage only makes matters worse. And to remember that tragedies are rarely as bad as they seem, and even when they are, they give us an opportunity to grow stronger.

Every difficult moment in our lives is accompanied by an opportunity for personal growth and creativity. But in order to attain⁷ this growth and creativity, we must first learn to control our emotions. We must recognize that difficulties pass like everything else in life. And once they pass, all we’re left with are our unique experiences with each other and this crazy world, and the lessons we’ve learned along the way.

Life is short. Our thoughts steer⁸ our reality. We already know this. The choice is ours to make.

今天傍晚，我在当地的一个酒吧遇到了一个朋友。她随身带了个笔记本电脑，来给我看她最新的数字艺术设计。就在我们谈论和浏览她的作品时，电脑突然发出了一阵不正常的嗡嗡声，随后屏幕不停的闪烁，直至完全关机。我们诧异地盯着对方，却闻到了一股难闻的焦味。

我抓起了电脑，走出酒吧。一检查，问题马上就明了了。电脑的底部被浸湿了，水杯翻倒在了她的钱包旁，里面的水全翻了出来，而恰巧那电脑就放在钱包的前面。我们谈论时反复地移动那17寸的屏幕，就这样打翻了服务生送来的一杯水，他无意地放在了屏幕的后面，这也是我们没有预料到的。

当生活给我们出类似于这种棘手的难题时，对我们来说根本不算什么，我们自然的情绪反应可能会感到非常沮丧，想要声嘶力竭地尖叫。但这样会帮我们脱离困境吗？显然不会。

在这些情况下，我们只需在反应中锻炼自己，这也是最聪明，通常也是最难的事。与其出口污言，不如使自己变的更明智，更具约束力。留有狂怒的情绪只会使事情变得更糟，而记住这些不幸的遭遇却不像它们本身那么糟，反而是一个让我们变得更坚强的机会。

在我们的生命中，每个艰难时刻都伴有一个自我成长和创造的机会，但我们必须首先要学会控制自己的情绪，这样才能把握住这个机会。必须承认，困难是我们生命中的一个个过客，就像其他东西一样。一旦经历过这些困难，我们拥有的不仅是和他人以及这个疯狂世界的独特的经历，还有从中学到的教训。

生命是短暂的，我们的思想掌控着现实的生活。我们早就知道了这点。选择，由我们自己做。