Every day, we have abundant opportunity to recognize injustice, on large and small scales.  You could find out you make less than someone who has the same job.  You or a loved one could be financially taken advantage of.  And this doesn’t even touch upon the massive injustices happening all over the world, far outside our every day life.

Some people may tell you that being positive will fix everything! But how can you be positive when you’re feeling negative? When you see the horrors in the news?  How can you forgive and move on when you feel anger and resentment?

I’ve got a friend who is dealing with a big wrong.  And his focus is on the injustice  and fighting the problem … and I totally get that feeling.  But let me tell you a story about why I don’t think that always works:

A professor draws a small dot on the white board and asks his students what they see. Everyone, shouts, “A dot.” The professor asks them to look again.  They do and all have the same answer.  Then, the professor asks his students, why they couldn’t see the white board or the wall it hung on.  Or even the table next to the wall.  Why?  Focus.  They were focused on the problem.  So much so that they couldn’t see anything else.

When we feel wronged, we become obsessed with the problem.  But, the solution is not going to be the problem. The solution will be outside the problem.  When we are wronged or see a wrong, we have to stop focusing on the dot and look at the white board.

I watched a friend be honored yesterday.  He’s done amazing things.  He’s taken cultural wrongs, focused on the bigger picture (outside the wrongs) and made them right.  So cool!

Those people who don’t let unfairness take them down, aren’t better than us. They’ve just found ways to handle the unfairness of life – to take action.  How?

• They catch their emotional response before it leads to obsessive thinking;
• They think before they act;
• They recognize the difference between what they can control and what they can’t – and they change the things they can; and
• They learn that compromise isn’t losing.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could collectively focus more on the white board?  To come up with creative ways to find solutions to the enormous wrongs the world is facing — and even those in our own backyard?

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.  And once you change the way you think about it, you’re likely to see the solution.

Have an amazing weekend!