The Lesson I Learned from a Couple of Cupcakes

Last week several teachers and I received a card and cupcakes from a grandmother of one of our students at my school. 

The cupcakes were delicious

 

 
but the card... was priceless!

I've enlarged the card so that you can read it. The part that really resonated with me is repeated below:

 

I just want to thank all of you for Casper's remarkable turn around.  Last night I baked you these cupcakes and well, they scorched a little.  I was mortified!  Started to throw them out and start over, but it was late, I was tired and was going to skip it till another day.  Then my son said to me, "So... they can eat around the burnt part."  Then it hit me isn't that how life is?  We eat around the burnt part to get to the good?

  

 

Who knew you could learn so much from a couple of slightly scorched cupcakes?  It's true though isn't it?  For every crazy -hard -dark-path that we must navigate there is light at the end and often that light turns out to be a splendid glorious sunrise.  There is something in me and you that wants to avoid that dark path.  We want to throw away the burnt cupcakes and start over, but if we persist and "eat around the burnt part" we find some deliciousness waiting. 

 

Five Lessons Learned from Difficulties

After a lifetime of trying to avoid risk and failure, I've finally learned that there is much to be grateful for in difficulty and adversity.  Here are five things I've learned:

1. In every adversity, there is an opportunity.  It's not always easy to see.  It takes a certain perspective, even sometimes the advantage of hindsight to find it.
2. The only people who experience a life free of failure are the people who never take a risk or try any thing new.  If you take a risk sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but you always learn.
3. You can turn any difficulty into a learning experience if you will focus on being a learner instead of a loser.  Rather than emphasizing that you failed look for what you have gained.  I never said it would be easy...
4. Difficulties make you more empathetic to others, especially those who have experienced similar ones.  It can help you forge close relationships.  It also gives you an additional way to serve others by sharing what you learned.
5. Some of your greatest work will be accomplished out of the most difficult times of your life.  My book, The Call: Perfect Dream, Imperfect Life was written in the midst of some of my most depressing days.

What about you?  What have you learned from the difficulties in your life?  When you eat around the scorched part, do you find something good?

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