Have you ever noticed that sometimes the biggest lessons come in the most painful packages? Often it takes a painful event, such as an illness, the loss of a job or marriage, or the death of a loved one to make us sit up and take notice. These events, distressing as they are, have enough impact to get our attention, and enough consequences to force us into change and growth.

Wouldnt it be nice to do without traumatic events to inspire our personal and spiritual growth? Do our learning experiences have to be wrapped up in such unattractive packaging? Actually, we get plenty of opportunity to check off our life lessons in far more pleasant ways!

As we go through life, there are friendly little helpers all over the place, calling to us. They come in benign, innocuous shapes such as book recommendations, inspiring conversations, a sudden idea or creative urge. When we ignore these helpful little signs, life invariably becomes more obvious. Suddenly the same themes and subjects pop up everywhere in books we read, in conversations we overhear, on television, at work and at the gym. But how often do we have to run into the same person by coincidence before we think that we should perhaps pursue this relationship? How often do we have to hear about a great class or workshop before we decide that we should enroll? More often than not, we never take action.

Now life gets a little more forceful. Little unpleasantries start happening. Youve had a nagging feeling you should get new tires, but have ignored it. Now you get a flat. If youre lucky, this happens in your garage. If life has decided you need a bigger hint, it happens when youre going 65 mph on the freeway. In any case, you deal with the consequences. A hassle, but nothing you cant handle. But how often do you think of this event as a learning experience? How often does a minor incident like this inspire you to look more closely at your life?

If you are being proactive about lifes learning opportunities, you now start trying to figure out what you can learn from this flat tire. To stop procrastinating? In that case, what else do you need to take care of that could have more dire consequences? Or is it a lesson in listening to your instincts? What else has been nagging at the back of your mind?

Most of us, however, just move on with business as usual. We write these events off as bad luck, complain about it to our friends, and get on with things. So now, after life has waved at us, has tapped us on the shoulder, has maybe even smacked us in the face a few times, we get walloped with the big event. This one knocks us off our feet and we finally take notice. Our life painfully compels us to examine ourselves. We are forced, kicking and screaming, into change.

When we have come through crisis, we often look back on hard times with gratitude. We know that the illness, the divorce, the job loss, or whatever upheaval took place, changed us for the better. But does growth really have to be so painful? I dont think so!

What if we looked everywhere in our lives for the learning opportunity? What if we chose to examine our beliefs, our thoughts and actions when things are going well? What if we took every little glitch along lifes path as an invitation to growth?