30th October 2025
One of life’s best coping mechanisms is to know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem.
Iam reminded of a great story by Robert Fulghum, the bestselling author.
During his early twenties, he used to work at a countryside resort. The owner was not the most likable person and Robert was getting weary of eating the same lunch every day. In addition, the cost of lunch would get deducted from his paycheck. It got on his nerves.
One night, he could hold it no longer, especially when he found out that the same lunch was going to be served for another couple of days. One of his colleagues, working as a night auditor, was Sigmund Wollman, a German Jew & a survivor of Auschwitz.
He was happy and content in the same hotel that Robert was mad and upset in. Finding no one else around to share his frustration, Robert spoke to Sigmund and expressed his anger against the hotel owner, he was mad because of eating the same food day-in-day-out and for having to pay for it.
Sigmund, listened patiently before saying:
“ Do you know what’s wrong with you? It’s not the food, and it’s not the boss, and it’s not this job.”
“So, what’s wrong with me?”
“Fulchum, you think you know everything, but you don’t know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem.
If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire – then you’ve got a problem.
Everything else is an inconvenience. Life is inconvenient, life is lumpy”
Robert Fulghum had a realization, and he further wrote in his story:
“I think of this as the Wollman Test of Reality. Life is lumpy. And a lump in the porridge, a lump in the throat and a lump in the breast are not the same lump. One should learn the difference.”
It is important to get real if you want to make the best of your life. You can keep complaining, or you can start living.
As they say, “Life is ninety percent how you take it and ten percent how you make it.”
It is easy, perhaps even natural and normal, that you hold others responsible for all that is not right in your life, but it will not take you anywhere, such an approach will not solve your problems, it will not ease your concerns.
Life may be inconvenient at times, put your difficulties in perspective, don’t major in minor things & stay blessed forever.