The Obstacle is the Way: The Ancient Art of Turning Adversity to Advantage

Many of our problems come from having too much: rapid technological disruption, junk food, traditions that tell us the way we’re supposed to live our lives. We’re soft, entitled, and scared of conflict. Great times are great softeners. Abundance can be its own obstacle, as many people can attest.

Instead of opposing enemies, we have internal tension.

Since World War II we have lived in some of the most prosperous times in history.

When you have a goal, obstacles are actually teaching you how to get where you want to go—carving you a path. “The Things which hurt,” Benjamin Franklin wrote, “instruct.”

“The obstacle in the path becomes the path. Never forget, within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition.”

Today, most of our obstacles are internal, not external.

Objective judgment, now at this very moment. Unselfish action, now at this very moment. Willing acceptance—now at this very moment—of all external events. That’s all you need. — MARCUS AURELIUS

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No one is coming to save you. And if we’d like to go where we claim we want to go—to accomplish what we claim are our goals—there is only one way. And that’s to meet our problems with the right action.