Advice for Daily Living
Published: Sep 02, 2023
If you are living the life of a hermit, you are not required to speak with people or interact with the world. But chances are you are not a hermit. There is a great likelihood that you are living with your family, and working either at home or outside, or running your own business. Chances are you are interacting daily with family members, friends, neighbors, fellow workers, employers, and employees. Living a householders life poses numerous challenges. To meet the challenges that your life presents, you must have effective tools that will help you cope at home and at work.
Scenario: You are upsent because your co-worker is always undermining your efforts.
Advice: Do what is needed and do it calmly. Reason with the co-worker. If he or she refuses to listen and leaves no other choice, go to your superior. If needed, it is perfectly alright for you to show your anger in order to let the co-worker know that you are not a pushover. However, do not get angry on the inside. Be humble and tolerant internally. Three reasons: (1) You will harm yourself by getting angry and frustrated. (2) God lives within your co-worker, and you so want God's grace. (3) No one is completely good or bad. Reflect on the good qualities of your co-worker.
Scenario: Your kids don't listen to you. This is keeping you awake at nights, giving you heartburn and increasing your blood pressure.
Advice: Rather than getting frustrated, keep the line of communication open with your children. This may not be something you are accustomed to doing, and it may not be easy for you to change, but it would benefit the entire family if you made the effort. Listen to your children patiently rather than yelling at them. Try to understand their point of view. The child may or may not come around, but you have a much better chance if you deal with her calmly and respectfully. Do not say to your child, "I never talked back to my parents," or "If I had spoken like this to my mother, I would have gotten slapped". Work with here and now rather than dwelling in past.
You may say that to do all this, you need a great deal of inner strength. You are right. And to gain that much-needed strength you must turn towards the source of strength. God is the only source of inner strength, and therefore, you should make it a point to spend sometime every single day in prayer. When you do, you will find that your day will go much smoother, and you will not be frustrated as you would be otherwise.
It is not possible for you to change the other person; so, work on changing yourself. Your problems will remain the same, but the changes within you will give you a fresh look at your problems. Earlier they may have looked like huge mountains, but now they will look like mustard seeds or even smaller.
