By Udeme Archibong

Once upon a time a minister was trying to prepare a sermon on a Saturday morning. However, his young son was restless and bored and every few minutes he would interrupt his chain of thought. Becoming weary of the interruption, the minister picked up an old magazine with a map of the world on it. He took the map and tore it into a number of pieces and threw the scraps all over the floor and said to his son, “Johnny, if you can put this all together, I’ll give you a quarter”, trying to engage the youngster so that he could complete his sermon. However, within three minutes the boy told his father happily that he had finished.

Piece of paper

The father was amazed to see the pieces of paper neatly arranged and the map of the world back in order. “Son, how did you get that done so fast?” the father asked, Johnny replied, “Oh, it was easy. On the other side there was a picture of a man. I just put a piece of paper on the bottom, put the picture of the man together, put a piece of paper on top, and then turned it over. I figured that if I got the man right, the world will be right.”

The minister handed his son a quarter as he had promised and said, “And you’ve given me my sermon for tomorrow, too, if a man is right, his world will be right.” Are you controlling your world? Or is your world controlling you? Are you changing your world? Or is your world changing you? The answer lies in your mental attitude.

There lived a grandpa and grandma who visited the grandchildren. One day when grandpa was having a nap, one of the kids decided to put Limburger cheese in his moustache. Soon afterwards he awoke sniffing. “Why this room stinks”, said he in utter desperation and went into the kitchen. He soon discovered that the kitchen smelled too and he decided to walk outdoors for a breath of fresh air.

Grandpa was puzzled and he frustratingly declared, “The whole world stings!” Stephen Covey states “It’s not what they’re not doing or should be doing that’s the issue. The issue is your own chosen response to the situation and what you should be doing. If you start to think the problem is “out there”, stop yourself. That thought is the problem.”

Where you focus on determines the direction you are going and what you focus on determines the quality of your life. Are we focusing on the past? Or are we focusing on the future we want to experience? Are we focusing on who is to blame for our circumstances? Or are we focusing on where we want to be and what we want to do? Are we focusing on the problem? Or are we focusing on the solution? Remember, when we focus on what we do not want, we perpetuate it; when we focus on what we want, we magnetize it.

Napoleon Hill reveals, “Every adversity has the seed of a greater benefit.” What you see is what you get; what you seek for is what you find. Look for advantages in every adversity; look for the good in every person. Be a “good finder” in life.

Adversity only comes to advance us. Problems only come to push us. Challenges only come to grow us. However, these statements will only become true if we look for a valuable lesson in every situation we encounter in life. Brian Tracy observes, “Every situation is a positive situation if I view it as an opportunity for growth and self-mastery”.

Whenever you are facing an unresolved challenge that is impeding you from accomplishing your goals, sit down with a pen and paper and make a list of everything you could possibly do to resolve the situation and go out and act on them.

Remember, if your mental attitude is right, your world will be right.