Life is composed of simple and complex conflicts that affect our daily lives to a lesser o greater extent. Every single day of our lives, life challenges us, disturbing our peace with a new conflict, some of them require no more than a simple solution, others require a more advance solution and others require us to develop or discover a solution that is not found in any book. However, there is one simple rule that can help us deal with our daily circumstances and that rule is: “Forcing things is never the solution”.
How many times in our lives do we seek to resolve a conflict, repair something or change our current circumstances by forcing things? How many times we applied force on something and the outcome we got was the opposite of what we expected? For instance, many times in my life I have tried to fix something by using force, and I ended up with the broken pieces of what I was actually looking to repair. Several times I broke things, and I ended up with sorrow, disappointment and anger when I applied force in different situations in my life.
The thing is, the first solution that comes to our minds when we seek to solve an issue in our lives that has already resisted our previous attempts to fix it is force. For some reason we have come to believe that when something is not working in the way we wanted to, we must apply force in order to fix it and to satisfy our wishes. Forcing things becomes our solution. However, while applying force on something can sometimes be a solution, it is only a temporal solution and in the future it will go back to its previous state or it will cause an irreparable rupture.
“Beware of trying to accomplish anything by force.” – Angela Merici
Therefore, an important lesson I have learned through my life, the experiences I had and many failed attempts, is that forcing is not a solution, but the cause of the irreparable destruction of something and the everlasting pain caused in our own selves and others. Therefore, the main rule we need to learn in order to deal with our conflicts and current circumstances successfully is knowing that if we need to force something is because we are doing it in the wrong way, hence, if we would like to have a positive outcome, we need to stop using our force. Change the strategies, find a better solution, accept it, or let it go, but forcing something will cause nothing but harm.
You may be thinking: “Oh well, I applied many times my force and it turned out well.” While that might be true, it is also true that the amount of times something turns out well by using force is less than the amount of times that something doesn’t turns out well by using force. This being said, we can be certain that the odds of getting a negative outcome by using force are extremely high. If you are confused and doubtful about that statement, I encourage you to apply force to fix something and see what happens. In the end, the only way to discover if something is true or not is by your own personal experience.
“Never force anything. Give it your best shot, and then let it be. If it’s meant to be, it will be.”
However, life has always found its way to show us throughout our existence that everything that was meant to be, will be without the need to force it. If a relationship, a job, a career, or anything else in our daily lives needs to be forced and oppressed in any way possible, it will sooner or later break, vanish and it will cause disappointment and sorrow. Therefore, in order to get the outcome we expect, we need to find, design or discover the solution that will help us deal with a certain conflict, creating the outcome we desire. On the other hand, we need to understand that sometimes letting go is the only possible and efficient solution, and while it can create also sorrow and despair, we are giving life the chance to reward us with a new beginning.
If you are forcing something and it is not giving you the outcome you were expecting is either because it was not meant to be, or because you are doing it the wrong way. Stop, relax, think and change strategies. Accept what you cannot control, learn to let go, or discover the way to achieve your desired outcome in a more efficient way.
Use more your strength to deal with your life and less your force and oppression on things and people, and you will have found the key to resolve most of the simplest and complex conflicts of your daily life!