Ram and Shyam went to reserve tickets for themselves in a railway station during a summer. As usual, there was a long queue. Both of them joined the queue. Ram was restless and began complaining about standing in that queue. But, Shyam was conversing with others in the queue. After an hour, both of them got their tickets. The only difference was that while Ram was unhappy during that one hour, Shyam was enjoying. They both took the same time and they both suffered the same hardship. What made this difference? It was in the way each of them were prepared to face the difficulty.

Now Ram started analyzing.”I am fine when everything goes fine. But what if it goes the other way? As it is commonly said, Life is a mixture of happiness and sorrow. So there is every possibility for things to go wrong. How do I manage then?”

He continued analyzing:”What are the factors involved in causing a difficulty? Difficulties arise out of two factors, the ones that are within our control and those which are beyond our control.”

He further analyzed “How do I manage these factors? One of the better ways to manage both these factors is to be mentally prepared. It is not that always I will be able to solve problems or difficulties. In some cases I have to live with them. Mental preparation gives me the authentic thinking to understand the difficulty and then decide whether to solve it or to live with it.”

He realized that this mental preparation brings a harmony in the environment around you, which would simplify your problem, at the least.

So, the next time he went to a railway reservation counter, he carried a book which he liked the most. This book gave him the assurance that he is going to be engaged even when he is in the queue. Also it made him mentally prepared to join the long queue before the counter without complaining about the Indian Railways or the Indian governmental setup. Surprisingly he did not read even a single page from the book; rather he enjoyed waiting in the queue.

Similarly when Shyam was preparing for examinations he shall enjoy doing it by taking breaks during which he can do the small jobs of his choice. This kept up his interest in preparing for that subject. All he had to do was to break his syllabus into topics and sub-topics. When one topic was completed, he would offer himself a break.
The incentive for finishing the topics or sub-topics faster was the increased break timings. The discipline he followed was to come back to the next topic, once the break time was over. This helped him to enjoy, even while preparing subjects that need more time to understand.

These are two such instances whereby a difficulty can be converted into an experience to be cherished. There could be many instances for us to enjoy. For all these we need to be prepared.