Ron Pies provides another perspective on problems. Only the dead are free of problems. Change your judgment! 

Having problems means being alive or, “The day all your problems vanish is the day they will throw dirt on you!” 

I first wrote on this topic in 2009, shortly after a special photography lab lost several priceless reels of home movies, dating back to my childhood in the 1950s and 60s. My wife and I were furious with the lab, and broken-hearted by the loss. The movies were irreplaceable and were never recovered. 

We found out about the missing film the day after Continental flight 3407 went down, just a few miles from the small town in western New York where I grew up. According to Wikipedia, “The aircraft, a Bombardier Dash-8 Q400 entered an aerodynamic stall from which it did not recover and crashed into a house in Clarence Center, New York at 10:17 p.m. EST, killing all 49 passengers and crew on board, as well as one person inside the house.” 

As the magnitude of the disaster became clear—and as the stories of so many bright lives snuffed out began to unfold — I felt ashamed and foolish over my reaction to the lost movies. The people on flight 3407 would never again have to worry about lost home movies, or paying taxes, or where their next meal would come from. They would never again have the opportunity to burn a piece of toast, wreck a relationship, or be on the receiving end of a pink slip. The passengers who lost their lives on flight 3407 would now have no problems at all — and would never have problems again! 

Now, eight years later, I remind myself how incredibly lucky I am to have problems—and, for the most part, relatively minor ones, at that. Having problems is what it means to be a living, breathing human being. It is a great gift that we often mistake for an insufferable burden. 

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Ron Pies, MD

 

 

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