It always seems like the easy answer – when life gets hard we crawl into a small, safe spot and wait for the trouble to abate.  We play “turtle” and pull our heads into our protective shell and only poke our nose out to see if the potential threat has dissipated.

But we don’t realize that, while we are playing the role of that turtle, we are missing a significant portion of our lives and potentially a great lesson or two that could be learned if we face that trouble head on.  Nobody who was ever honest with us would have told us that life was easy.  It is those significantly difficult times that teach us the most about how to deal with tough situations, but more than that, it teaches us a lot about our own character.

We build our strength from the tough lessons we endure and we create that hard tortoise shell by deflecting negativity and warding off malicious situations.  Sure that shell is there to protect us, but not to completely shield us from the life that manifests itself before us.

Life is tough.  We need to strap on that helmet and go into the fight fully prepared for what is waiting to rear its ugly head.  No real dilemma was ever solved by just wishing it away.  Strap on the head gear and tackle life head on – your offensive line may be much tougher than you give it credit for!