“In Italy for thirty years . . . they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace. And what did that produce? The cuckoo-clock.”–A speech written into The Third Man, a screenplay written in 1949

So what does this mean for mothers striving to overcome adversity in their lives? Whatever our trials, they have the potential to make us great. Challenges provide opportunities to push ourselves and become more than we are.

A life without challenge would quickly become boring; but worse, it would provide no opportunity for us to improve ourselves. What would we be accomplishing, if we only stayed the way are? Learned nothing more? Strived to become great in some way?

Yet thinking of challenges (what many often label “problems”) as a positive force in our lives can be more than a little difficult. For challenges can bring discomfort, pain, and loss, if not surmounted quickly enough. But what are our choices? Challenges will come, whether we bid them come, or not. (Though we can certainly search out more challenges for ourselves, the futility of avoiding all challenges would quickly become apparent.)

We can view the challenge as an opportunity to overcome, or we can view them as just one more bad thing happening to us and keep our heads buried. Of course, the latter perspective would likely negate the opportunity, and the challenge (problem?) would likely just keep getting bigger. Problems rarely seem to go away on their own.

You have the power to choose how to think about the challenges in your life. And your choice determines whether you will enable yourself to overcome your challenges.

If parents can see the truth in this, they can do tremendous good for their children by teaching them how to face life’s challenges. When children learn to choose their point of view, they learn an invaluable skill that will benefit them throughout their lives.

We may not be able to always choose what happens to us in life–but we CAN choose whether to view it as an opportunity to learn–or something that will keep us in mental shackles.