Obstacles Part 7
October 26, 2025
Obstacles Part 7
Sometimes our biggest obstacle is another human being. It seems like if only they would change, we could be happy.
Seventeen-year-old Jayda was unhappy because her father would not allow her to date a certain young man. Jayda thought her dad stood between her and happiness, so she resented him. Harriet, a wife and mother thought that only if her son Michael, age 21, stopped using drugs, her life would be happy once more. Reggie, a thirty-year-old mechanic, thought that his boss stood in the way of his much-desired promotion. He spent many of his days at work in anger towards his boss.
When desperate, people are blocked from happiness, and many do anything to achieve it. Decades ago, the country was horrified to learn that a man murdered his pregnant wife. Scott Peterson and Laci were soon to have their baby, Conner. But Scott found another type of happiness with another person, and he chose that other person. So, he plotted a way to remove his blocks to happiness. He murdered Laci and their unborn son. After the murder, he called his mother-in-law and said to her, “Laci has gone missing.”
Our seeming blocks are not always the things blocking our happiness. They are the embodiment of a problem within ourselves that calls for insight and healing. Jayda’s resentment of her dad was her opportunity to understand that we cannot get everything in life that we want and that we cannot put our lives on hold for just one person. Harriett’s block was seemingly Michael and his disease. But Harriett learned in Al-Anon that her happiness could not be dependent on her grown son’s choices. Reggie’s boss was the opportunity for him to control his anger and to trust that his excellent work would be recognized eventually by those even higher than his boss, even those in other businesses.
As for Scott Peterson, he couldn’t see that his obstacle to happiness was not Laci and Conner. It was his egoic preoccupation with self— a form of narcissism and unconsciousness. The question he needed to address at the start is, "Why is my feeling for someone else so powerful that I would murder innocent lives?” Serious and life-changing questions such as these that carry heavy consequences for all must be faced. But extreme selfishness, entitlement, narcissism, and many other factors obviously overruled Scott's real road to healing.
Spiritual practice: List your obstacles. How are you part of them?
Self-inquiry: What will you do to see that truth about your obstacles?
Prayer: Dear God, You teach me that my obstacles, even if they are people, hold answers to my spiritual growth. I pray to see all those who seemingly block my happiness as being people who can show me the way to healing and wholeness. Amen.
