Reaching Our Highest Heights

If you read inspirational stories, you will find that most of the people we call “heroes” are simply individuals who found a dark situation and had the passion and perseverance to create something positive-- in spite of it.

One such inspiring example is Pushpa Basnet, a 2012 CNN Hero of the Year, who helped to develop a housing program for children of prisoners in Nepal after she learned that they were actually growing up incarcerated with their parents. This past week has also been full of powerful stories about men and women who are putting their all into making things better for their neighbors – and even for strangers – in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. Indeed, history teaches us that most of humanity’s greatest accomplishments have blossomed from the seeds of hard work and persistence sown on behalf of others in the face of difficulty.

The same was true of Abraham in the Bible. If we look at Abraham’s life, we will see that he reached his high spiritual level because he passed through ten trials. But if we look a little deeper, we will see that it was not the trials themselves that brought him to where he needed to be, but instead the way that he responded to them. Abraham didn’t complain in the face of each difficulty or say, “Why do I have to do this? Why am I being forced to suffer in this way?” Instead, whatever the Creator asked of him, Abraham accepted as his role with certainty. He took the circumstances he was given, formed them, and created beauty from them. Whatever seemed negative, Abraham transformed into something positive.

How many times does life throw us a curve ball and the first thing we say is “How come? Why me? How come my business failed? How come my relationship failed? After all, aren’t I a spiritual person?” Oftentimes, we approach our day as a series of tasks to complete: wake up, go to work, do whatever we need to do to get on with our lives. If we complete these tasks, we are happy and feel productive, and if we don’t, we are left feeling dissatisfied.

Abraham approached his day differently. Every time he met with aggression, every time he met with people that sought to do him harm, every time he ran up against a wall, he would say, “I accept this situation for what it is, and instead of letting it victimize me, I will transform it into positivity.” In other words, Abraham lived to find the spirituality in each day, in each trial, in each frustration that he faced.

The truth is, we don’t have to wait for tragedy to wake us up. Each one of us, if we open our eyes and tune in a bit more to our lives, will find that we have opportunities each and every day to transform negativity into positivity. Oftentimes, when someone or some situation challenges us, our first thought is usually: How can I make this situation go away as soon as possible, rather than How can I transform this situation into Light? Sometimes, we can even be so quick to push the situation aside that we don’t even realize we have lost a chance to make a change in our lives.

This week, let’s be aware of the opportunities that the universe sends us to bring spirituality into our daily activities, so we can reach the heights we are destined for.