Before this day ends I guarantee that life will give you the opportunity to learn something about yourself.

A comment I hear on a regular basis from a wide variety of people both educated and not, is, if I just learn one thing from this experience, day, seminar, person, it will be worthwhile.

Life is an interesting and fascinating series of events, processes and growth opportunities. It is what happens to us as we plan the outcomes in our life we hope for, desire or need, to feel fulfilled, prosperous, happy or successful.

Life is truly a classroom. In a sense class begins the day we are born and ends the day we pass from this world. There are no recesses or vacations. You never graduate. And there is a constant stream of pop quizzes, exams and assignments. There is however no final exam. There is no pass or fail in this classroom, but you can repeat a class again and again until you learn the lessons that life is trying to teach you.

We are all traveling through our very unique and personal life toward a variety of circumstances, events, people and outcomes. We bring these circumstances and people into our life either consciously or unconsciously so we can learn.

Some people are good students, and are always moving on toward newer and more rewarding assignments or lessons, while others are stuck in the same old patterns, life dramas and situations because they fail to see the learning as theirs. They tend to point their fingers outward with comments like, "you need to change, this is your problem or your responsibility, you did this to me, I am a victim, life isn't fair", and so on.

Life is neutral. It doesn't care whether you are poor or wealthy, happy or unhappy, educated or ignorant, black or white, Catholic or Jew, from Boston or Dallas, single or married, good looking or ugly, courageous or afraid, sick or healthy and working or retired. Life just is. It doesn't really have opinions. It doesn't get excited when you reach a goal, or whine when you fail, or have a problem. Life is. It is not about what comes into your life, but how you react to it, handle it or overcome it that matters.

Success comes to many people. Some handle it well, while others do not. Adversity comes to everyone. Some people give up, while others use it to become stronger. Everyone has problems: either in their careers, businesses, or relationships, with in-laws, customers, or children, or in their finances, their health or social life. But, everyone has problems. Problems are also neutral. They don't really care how you respond or react to them. They do however, seem to be related to each other. A problem in one area of your life will impact some other, or all other areas of your life.

The opportunity for personal growth or learning (the assignments that you are given that I have been referring to) comes to everyone every day. The key to being a good student is to bring all of the learning back to yourself, and not see these assignments, or lessons that are yours, as something someone else needs to learn. You and I don't get to determine the curriculum, or lessons of other people in life. We do however, play a part or role in the lives of the people who cross our path. We are either teachers for them, or students of theirs, but in either case as the teacher or the student in this relationship, we can learn something about ourselves: our reactions, motives, fears, frustrations, agendas and desires, and so on as a result of the relationship.

This learning we have been discussing is never easy. Think back on the classes you had in college or high school that were a breeze, and required no preparation, study or effort. I'll bet you learned little from those experiences. You just coasted. Problem is, you can't coast through life, it won't let you. What you need to learn will always come to you from some source i.e. an event, person, situation, or circumstance. You may not even believe that you need to learn this particular lesson, or you may even think you have already learned it at some previous time, or with some previous person, but if the lesson or assignment is in your life, rest assured, the learning in this area of your life is not over or complete yet.

The opening line in the first chapter of Scott Peck's best seller, The Road Less Traveled, says, Life is difficult." But, Scott goes on to explain that life is difficult only for those people who expect life to be easy. Life is not easy or hard, it just is. What makes it easy or hard is our resistance to the learning, or our willingness to be a good student. Scott goes on to say that, people who expect life to be difficult, (these people are not negative or pessimistic, they are realists) life isn't any easier for them, but getting through their life is.

Another area where people find that life continuously sends them opportunities to learn is as a result of their expectations. One of the biggest causes of frustrations in relationships - raising children, managing employees, or dealing with customers or suppliers - is the unrealized expectations of the other persons behavior. People never seem to act, feel, think, believe or perform the way other people think they should. In general these expectations of other people set you up for disappointment.

I don't mean to imply that you should go through life without any expectations of others or yourself. I am saying however, that you need to manage your expectations. What do I mean by manage your expectations?

Your views, opinions, feelings, methods, attitudes, judgments, or actions, whatever they are, are not right, but they are, yours. Other people's feelings, attitudes etc are not wrong, they are theirs. People always see themselves as right. Expectations are not about right or wrong. Our mission, purpose or challenge in life, contrary to popular opinion, is not to change the behavior, feelings or beliefs of others. If we feel we must fulfill some role in that capacity, we will always sense a great deal of frustration, and experience a tremendous amount of disappointment. People change when they are ready to change as a result of their inside-out discovery. The lessons we have in life are life's way of giving us the opportunity to self-discover where we need to change or modify our behavior or thinking. You can not change another person, no matter what method you use. Guilt won't do it, nor will blame. Anger won't do it, nor will resentment. Manipulation won't do it, nor will begging. People change when they want to, or need to, and not before

Some people, no matter how hard they try, will never see life as you see it. I will repeat, your view of life is not right, but it is yours. For every person that walks the Earth, their is a perception, interpretation, paradigm, belief structure, or opinion about everything from how to eat, to how to sell; from how to manage, to how to drive; from how to boil water, to how to raise children, and on and on and on.

The difference between your reality and your expectation is disappointment, pain, anger, grief, or anxiety.

What are some of the teachers in life? Pain is a teacher. Worry is a teacher. Grief is a teacher. Disappointment is a teacher. Guilt is a teacher. Fear is a teacher. Failure and problems are teachers. Adversity of any kind is a teacher. Happiness and joy are teachers. Your children were given to you for you to teach them, but for them to also teach you. What can your children teach you? Tolerance, patience, and acceptance. Your spouse is a teacher for you, not teaching you about them, (although that might be part of the deal) but giving you the opportunity to learn about yourself.

There is a principle in psychology called mirroring. It states that we send out our stuff to the world such as attitudes, opinions, actions, feelings and so on. When we send out anger to the people in our lives, for example, they mirror back our own anger to us. The tendency of most people is to see other people's stuff; their guilt, blame, criticism and so on, as the other persons. However, people are just mirrors for us permitting us if we are willing, able or mature enough, to see it as our own areas that are in need of growth.

Let me give you an example.

Let's say, one of the things life is teaching you is the importance of being on time. You are getting assignments in this area from the classroom of life because you tend to be late. When you say you will be somewhere at 10:AM you are there at 10:15 AM.

You have an appointment with a friend for 6:PM for coffee. You get there at 6:10 and he is not there yet. He shows up at 6:30. And you get upset because he is late. What is the teaching here? How is your friend your teacher? The point is, in this example, this issue is not about his lateness, (you can make it that if you choose to) it is about how you are reacting to his lateness. Life is giving you another assignment, in the form of this person and this event, to learn about the importance of being on time. Let's say you don't learn the lesson this time.

Life says, so and so, that's you, needs another lesson in this time stuff. That you are not getting it. Often with the passage of too much time, or too many opportunities to learn a particular lesson, the message will get louder and louder until you decide to learn. Eric Allenbaugh in his great book, Wake up calls, calls these moments, you guessed it, wake up calls. The new lesson might come when you are ten minutes late for a plane, and guess what? The plane didn't wait for you. Sooner or later you will learn this lesson on time, or I guarantee time lessons will continue to come at you from every direction. They might not look like lessons about learning the importance of time and your word, but if you will look deep into many of the various lessons you may be learning now, that are less obvious, I will bet somewhere hidden beneath the surface is an assignment about this time issue.

A dear friend of mine once asked me, Tim, "don't we ever get a break from the lessons in life?" No. They just change, get bigger, different, smaller until one day if you have refused to pay attention to the learning opportunity, you get the biggie, a 2x4 experience, that's a 2x4 against the side of your head. It is life saying to you, you have ignored our earlier nudgings. You have not paid attention, either because of arrogance or ignorance. It is now time to pay attention, wake up, get it!!!

I am sure that as you go through your day, week and life you will have many teachers. Some will be kind and loving, while others will be rude and arrogant. Some will be nice while others will be nasty. But, they are all your teachers, just the same.

By your not learning from your earlier teachers, usually the nice and loving ones, life will send you some nasty and rude ones later. If you don't learn from them, guess who will be next?

Well class is almost over, so before I excuse you to get to your next one I will leave you with a few ideas to consider on how to make your learning years, from birth to death, less stressful, more fun and rewarding.

One- Remember one of the keys to peace and happiness is acceptance.
Two- There is learning in everything, but you have to look for it. It won't always be obvious.
Three- When there is something in your life that is perceived as wrong, lean to ask yourself, where, what, is the learning here.
Four- Develop the attitude or paradigm that life is a teacher. Giving you opportunities to learn about yourself from other people and events.
Five- No one is ever wrong, they just need to learn more.
Six- No one has faults they just do, feel, behave, think differently than you do.
Seven- There are inside teachers and outside teachers. The inside ones are your feelings, emotions or though patterns. The outside ones are people, events and circumstances.
Eight- Some teachers appear as tyrants in our life, put there to antagonize, punish or contribute to our pain in some way. Life gave them that role (this may be hard to accept) to lovingly help you grow in the area where you need the greatest growth.
Nine- Look at the personal filter you bring to every situation. Is it a negative filter - life is hard, life is stressful, you can't win, life is a struggle, life is frustrating, or is it a positive one - joyous, life is an adventure, life is fascinating, life is wonderful.
Ten- Learn to embrace the unexpected and release the expected.
Eleven- Forget your mistakes, but remember their lessons.
Twelve- Lighten up. A hundred years from now none of this will matter.

Remember, you can't not learn. You choose to learn by design, digging out the lessons and then changing, or life teaches you without your cooperation. You can flow or resist, act or be, relax and enjoy the trip or die a little with every mistake, failure, problem, adversity or disappointment.