If I feel depressed I will sing. If I feel sad I will laugh. If I feel ill I will double my labor. If I feel fear I will plunge ahead. If I feel inferior I will wear new garments. If I feel uncertain I will raise my voice. If I feel poverty I will think of wealth to come. If I feel incompetent I will think of past success. If I feel insignificant I will remember my goals. Today I will be the master of my emotions.
My throat was parched and my entire body was leprous with cuts, yet my mind was exceedingly clear. I knew I was in deep s**t. I didn’t know how deep--just that I still hadn’t touched bottom.
Sol Luckman
Source: Beginner's Luke: Book I of the Beginner's Luke Series, Pages: 52..53
It is not always by plugging away at a difficulty and sticking to it that one overcomes it; often it is by working on the one next to it. Some things and some people have to be approached obliquely, at an angle.
I was in rehearsals, waiting behind a door to come out while a couple onstage were having a row. They started throwing furniture and a chair lodged in front of the door.
My cue came and I could only get halfway in. I stopped and said, 'I can't get in. The chair's in the way.'
And the producer said, 'Use the difficulty.'
I said, 'What do you mean?'
And he said, 'Well, if it's a drama [you're acting in], pick up the chair and smash it. If it's a comedy, fall over it.'
This idea stuck in my mind, and I taught it to my children -- that any situation in life that's negative, there is something positive you can do with it.
Michael Caine (1933 -)
Source: Michael Caine interviewed by Parkinson on television
What is required of us is that we love the difficult and learn to deal with it. In the difficult are the friendly forces, the hands that work on us. Right in the difficult we must have our joys, our happiness, our dreams: there against the depth of this background, they stand out, there for the first time we see how beautiful they are." and learn to deal with it. In the difficult are the friendly forces, the hands that work on us. Right in the difficult we must have our joys, our happiness, our dreams: there against the depth of this background, they stand out, there for the first time we see how beautiful they are.