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Use the Difficulty: A Life-Changing Philosophy
When asked about his life philosophy during an interview, award winning actor Michael Caine told a story…
I was rehearsing a play when I was a very young actor and I had to come in a scene. It was just stage play, I'm behind the flats waiting to open the door. There was an improvised scene between a husband and wife going on inside—he threw a chair and it lodged in the doorway.
And I went to get open the door and I just got my head round and I said, “I'm sorry sir I can't get in…there's a chair there.”
He said to me, “Use the difficulty!”
I said, “What do you mean?”
He said, “Well if it's a comedy, fall over it. If it's a drama, pick it up and smash it. Use the difficulty!”
Now I took that into my own life. You ask my children, anything bad happens you’ve got to use the difficulty. There's never anything so bad that you cannot use that difficulty.
If you can use it a quarter of 1% to your advantage, you're ahead. You didn't let it get you down. That’s my philosophy.
This story offers a powerful reframe…
Every single difficulty you face is an opportunity in disguise.
In a 1789 letter to a friend, Benjamin Franklin famously wrote, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”
With all due respect to Ben, I think we can add a third certainty:
Difficulty.
The difficulty is a guarantee. The struggle. The obstacle. The frustration. The failure. The hurt. The setback. They will come. You don’t get to choose whether they appear, or when, but you do get to choose how you handle them.
How can you use the difficulty you're currently facing?
How can you embrace this struggle?
How can you grow through it?
How can you find flow through this friction?
How can you sow the seeds of your light during the periods of darkness?
If you were reading a biography of your life, what would make this difficulty into an inflection point? The moment when everything turned for the better. The unmistakable point where everything changed.
How would you have responded to this moment?
The difficulty is a guarantee. You can't control it.
But you can control how you react to it. You can control your response to it. You can control your attitude towards it.
You can use the difficulty.
