Adversity is a term that means many different things to different people. For some, adversity is something easily dealt with, a common every day term. Other people on the opposite end use the term as something that brings their lives to a standstill. While certain people are able to easily deal with the hardships in their lives, others break down at the first sign of trouble or difficulty. Everything is relative, so it is more about the person than the actual situation.
I often read inspiring stories about what others overcome in order to succeed. Now, success can also be a relative term as for one person, success could mean something and for the other it could be entirely different. A person that suffers a debilitating injury and learns to walk again is in a far different situation than one who repeatedly fails at raising money for a company until the right investor comes into play. The thing is that the circumstances are not comparable, but in either case, each person has to come up and face a particularly daunting scenario in which they could have easily given up. In both of these situations, the individual prevailed through the hard times.
“Difficult times disrupt your conventional way of thinking and force you to forge better habits of thought, performance and being.” – Robert S. Sharma
Mr. Sharma is correct, the end result of a difficult space in life is how we all rise to the occasion and carry out the necessary steps to move forward. It is almost impossible to gauge what we are able to handle until we are put into the position where, all of a sudden, we have to face what is in front of us. I’m sure that we all possess the ability to rise to the occasion. In the end, I hope that our wills are not tested to the absolute limit. If I found out that I had a life-threatening illness tomorrow, would I be able to beat it? Yes, I would. I don’t want to have to battle for my life, and I’m sure that everyone reading this doesn’t, either. Take pride in the hope that all our lives have. It could be so much worse. So, so much worse.
You have the ability to make anything happen. There are no limitations in this great world, in our great lives. Literally everything that comes our way is a bump in the road. There are a million idioms, maxims, and adages that can attest to the trials and tribulations of being alive. Existentialism is defined as the ability of the individual to develop themselves through the acts of free will. Along with free will comes the circumstances that we all face and our decisions. There is no common creed or guidance from a higher authority to help us in our daily plight of existence. Our ability, as man, is to discover the attributes that allow us the notion to succeed. In our lives, we must forge through what we perceive as our inadequacies. Adversity not only defines our faults, but reinforces our strength to prevail. Life is all about prevailing.
Every time something difficult comes your way, think about all the times you had to put up with difficult scenarios in the past, or how going through a hard time taught you a lesson or presented a new thought or idea. Laugh, joke around and think positively about how you can get through the difficult times facing you. There is always a way. Be inventive and most certainly, never give up. There is a higher purpose for all of us and every bit of life challenges us to either fail, or be better.