Use The Difficulty

This morning, while scrolling through YouTube Shorts, I came across a brief interview from 2002 featuring Michael Parkinson with Michael Caine. In the video, Caine shares his life philosophy: “Use the difficulty.”

The clip is so concise and clear that the best way to share it is to let Caine speak for himself:

“Yes. Use the difficulty… Well, I got it from… I was rehearsing a play when I was a very young actor, and I had to come in this scene — it was a stage play. I’m behind the flats waiting to open the door. There was an improvised scene between a husband and wife going on inside, and they got carried away, throwing things. He threw a chair, and it lodged in the doorway.

And I went to open the door, and I just got my head around, and I said, “I’m sorry, Sir, I can’t get in.” And he said, “What do you mean?” “There’s a chair there.”

He said to me, “Use the difficulty.” I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “Well, if it’s a comedy, fall over it; if it’s a drama, pick it up and smash it!” He said, “Use the difficulty.”

Now I took that into my own life. You can ask my children — anything bad happens, they go, “We’ve got to use the difficulty. How can we work… what can we get out of this?” Use the difficulty. And so, there’s never anything so bad that you cannot use that difficulty. If you can use it even a quarter of one percent to your advantage, you’re ahead; you didn’t let it get you down.”