Surviving the Ordinary Struggles of Life

Most of us have a struggle in negotiating the furrows and ridges of life. Anxiousness and depressive feelings are common to us all, if only for moments. Surviving the ordinary struggles of life is truly our biggest test—winning the financial battles, retaining our composure with our family and children, getting some meaning out of our work, etc.

At times these struggles get on top of us, and we can begin to feel isolated and beyond help. This is until we arrive at hope for recovery; where we can work on enjoying life again.

Having Realistic Expectations

If we were to sit outside of our bodies for a moment—outside of our lives—we would have the vantage point of an objective third party.

How would we view our lives, including the challenges we face and must surmount?

Chances are we a harder on ourselves than we ought to be. Sometimes the pressure comes from within. Sometimes we set ourselves up with unrealistic expectations. And many times our unrealistic hopes climb over our more established abilities and capacities.

God always makes life achievable, but we must keep it simple.

When we begin to view our lives fairly, noting the inbuilt complexities, many of which involve us emotionally, we can begin to debunk the false hopes. We become more realistic. Realism becomes more important than optimism or pessimism.

We need to get fair with ourselves regarding what we expect.

Celebrating the Simple Things

God is found in the simple things. And although we’ve been placed in complex lives, within a multifaceted world, our key to establishing peace enough to survive the ordinary difficulties of life is simplicity.

When we can differentiate our needs from our wants, being quite wise and discerning, we begin to do the things we need to do first, such that our lives are ordered. It brings a lot of joy to most of us to be in control. Especially when we are to be relied upon as adults, being in control of the necessary things of life really does help.

But then there are things we have no control over. These would be the complicated things; the things we don’t understand; the things God has in control. These we do our best to simply accept.

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The simpler we can keep our lives the better. The more realistic our expectations are the better. Keeping life simple and being realistic are two great ways of surviving the ordinary struggles of life.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.