The Price We Pay for Progress

Why am I so frustrated? I'll tell you why I am so frustrated in two simple words - The Internet. I frequently go to the Internet to find information, but once I get there I just don't know where to start. Search engines use to work really well when I wanted to find information on a topic. But these days it's very likely that you will get over a million results when you search for information on any given topic. I've even tried narrowing my search to no avail. Talk about frustrating! Checking my email is no less frustrating than searching for information. Spam seems to be the king of the Internet. I receive email from people and places I've never heard of before. I've tried getting new email accounts but the spam seems to follow me wherever I go. Talk about frustrating! Then there are those annoying pop-up and pop-under windows that seem to appear out of nowhere. Who came up with that idea anyway? Talk about frustrating! Pop-ups do a wonderful job of diverting my attention away from the information I went to the website to look for. Oh. And of course there are those websites that have words and pictures dancing around to the sound of my favorite tunes. Not! It's a shame that in the time it takes for those pages to load, I can surf to five other sites. You may wonder why I continue to surf the web if it is truly such a frustrating experience for me. Better yet, why do I run an online business if being online is so frustrating? I'll tell you why. That's the price we pay for progress. I use to wonder why I put myself through the agony and frustration. Well, I realized that although the Internet has its definite pitfalls, the benefits far outweigh the cost. When I look beyond the frustration to the benefits, I can appreciate its value. So often in our lives we miss the beauty of the forest because we are to busy focusing on the giant trees. The giant trees are the obstacles we must overcome in order to reach our goals. If we focus on the obstacles (giant trees) in our lives we miss out on all that life has to offer us. We fail to reach our goals because of the obstacles that we see standing in our way. The funny thing about obstacles is that they are not always as big as we make them seem. In fact, how you look at a situation determines whether or not it is really an obstacle. A situation can either be a stumbling block (obstacle) or a stepping stone (opportunity). When faced with an unfavorable situation you must make a conscious decision about how to handle it. Will you treat it as an obstacle or will you transform it into an opportunity? Just as I face frustrations in operating an online business (which was one of my goals), you too will face frustrations in pursuing your own personal goals. But frustration is the price that you must pay for progress.