We do things we like. But often we are confronted with people and situations that are difficult, unpleasant, or out of our comfort zone. We sometimes tend to brush them under the carpet with the hope they go away.

Looking the other way and living in denial may give us temporary respite, but in the long run, we end up paying a heavy price for not having attended to things and nipping them in the bud. Even though we know this, we continue avoiding difficult situations and relationships because we are not at ease facing them. And somewhere at the back of our mind, these unattended issues bother us.

But it need not be this way if we change our approach and attitude towards challenges and unpleasantness.

It starts with realising that even though we may not understand it at that moment, things in life happen for a reason. By brushing things under the carpet, we deny ourselves the opportunity life is giving us for learning and growing.

When we are saddled with responsibilities we don’t like, attending to them diligently strengthens our acceptance and equanimity.

Engaging in difficult and sometimes unpleasant conversations, tests our conviction, strengthens our courage, and releases us of the fear we live with of the consequences. People stop taking advantage of us or taking us for granted.

Attending to important but not urgent issues well in time, develops our discipline, and prevents us from being trapped in the stressful life of most things becoming important-urgent.

Turning a blind eye to personal habits that need attention can severely compromise the quality of our life. Attending to them in their infancy saves us from spending the best years of our life undoing what may become deep rooted because we chose to ignore it.

We tend to classify things as our likes and dislikes, gravitating to what we like doing and taking an ostrich attitude to what we don’t. But if we change our paradigm and start looking at things as important and unimportant, taking care of important things, no matter what our preference, we save much agony and pain.

At the end of the day, our sound sleep doesn’t come from everything going our way. It comes from knowing we had the courage and strength to face up to life, not brushing anything under the carpet.

(Picture-Flowers blooming in Lonavala post monsoons)