I was visiting my in-laws one evening when I saw this post on my newsfeed. It was from my 18-year-old son. He said:

"I just walked past my parent's room and heard my 4 year old sister Sarah crying. My parents are gone so I thought she was in there waiting for Mom to get home. I tried to open the door but it was locked, so when I got into the room with a key and asked what was wrong, I saw that she had tied the ribbon of her dress to their bed. As I was struggling to untie it she said:

'I'na good tie-er. Wanna know why I tied myself to the bed? ... Because Bethany was being mean to me.'

"That was the only explanation she gave. I guess the moral of the story is don't be mean to your little siblings or they might lock themselves in a room and tie themselves to furniture with knots that they can't undo on their own."

Indeed, sometimes our reaction to life's disappointments and frustrations becomes the real source of our problems. We can really complicate matters when we react instead of responding with calculated choice of thought.

Life will disappoint us, and frustrations are inevitable.  Our power to rise above such problems, however, does not lie in the circumstances themselves, but in how we respond to them.

And, as explained in Hidden Treasures, Heaven's Astonishing Help with Your Money Matters (free download), the larger the problem, the greater the opportunity.

So, I echo my son's moral, and remind us all to apply it to the world of adults:

If life is mean to YOU, don't tie yourself up in knots that you can't undo on your own.

Success is not a measure of how many problems we avoid; it's a measure of how well we respond to the problems we have.

If you feel like you're already "tied up" in some way, pat yourself on the back for being a good "tie-er" (be kind to yourself!) ...and then get some help. You don't have to stay stuck forever.

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