I had a revelation this week I am hoping will help me deal with life better. The revelation was simply that each day a series of tests will come my way. The way I respond to the test will determine whether I pass or fail it. Staying calm, patient, polite and self-controlled equates to a pass and losing the plot, panicking, getting angry and rude is a fail.
I am sure I already knew life was full of little tests but as I was reminded of it again, I thought I had better take more notice of it this time.
It all started when things did not go to plan for some of the people who are part of my life. Safely from the sideline I watched them respond to various situations mostly with complaining and criticising. I thought to myself, in a sanctimonious sort of way, their response to what was happening to them was not helping them much.
And it occurred to me, as I watched from my comfortable chair on the sideline, life is a series of tests and challenges. The way we respond to them has the ability to either make us feel worse about the situation or help us come to a place where we find a solution. Sometimes there may be no solution but to walk through the situation. Whatever the case if we can respond calmly and not get too emotional or defensive then the situation will not threaten to swamp us and we will feel much better about ourselves. Because I think that is one of the biggest challenges of a test. I suspect the thing we have to learn to avoid in a test is the negative way it makes us feel about ourselves.When things turn to custard we often blame ourselves or end up feeling a failure or attacked or worthless. We also tend to attack others.
While I was pondering the subject of tests in other people's lives and feeling rather smug that I was not experiencing too many difficulties, things started to turn custardy for me. And I have to say it is much more fun watching other people being sifted than being sifted yourself. During a two day period at least three situations occurred that really challenged me. I noticed that even though it looked like I was passing the test on the outside, because I appeared calm and was not complaining, on the inside I was a dithering, woe-is-me mess. While my thoughts were in turmoil I was not good at relating to people and there was a greater chance I would say the wrong thing. I also noticed that that some tests were harder to pass than others and some required time and effort to pass. Tests could be as simple as responding to someone not filling up the kettle to as difficult as someone complaining about the way you completed a job.
From all my musings and philosophising about tests I have concluded that I am not that well-equipped to deal with them and need a plan to help me as they pop up in my life so I have developed a two pronged approach. Firstly I need to have my official position on tests sorted. I need to live my life with the philosophy that tests are inevitable but they are also good. I need to welcome and not avoid them. A test is an opportunity to stay calm in the midst of a crisis, an opportunity to stay self-controlled and practise patience. An opportunity to grow up some more. Secondly I needed to know what steps to take when a test appears. I decided a good response to a test would be to quickly take a deep breath and a step back from the situation and respond calmly with the thought goody-another-test-I-wonder- what-I-can-learn, before responding to the actual test itself.
It all seems a bit simplistic and naive to think that this two-pronged approach could work but I do not want to live my life being sabotaged and ambushed by things that happen to me. There seems to be something powerful and releasing about recognising life is not always easy and challenges will come my way. When a test does come, being able to identify it as such, seems to take the sting out of its tail.
I may not be able to control what happens to me but I sure can control how I will react. Responding calmly, patiently and politely is something I want to be consistently expert at and it will not happen unless I am purposeful and deliberate about it.
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