YOU ARE NOT ALONE - SUFFERING, STRENGTH, AND CHALLENGES
Theodore Roosevelt
“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena,
whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; […]
who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement,
and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly,
so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat”
PERSPECTIVE
We meet hard situations everyday:
Waking up early — feeling groggy and just wanting to stay in bed
Dealing with annoying people — without losing it
Skipping that piece of cake — we already feel guilty about the first one
Trying not to surrender to anger — and then feeling guilty that we did
Things not going as planned — AGAIN
That argument with the spouse — AGAIN
Feeling under-appreciated — despite feeling you poured everything you’ve got into it
Burnout from work — and blaming yourself for not maintaining better habits
Blaming ourselves for not completing all of our goals for today — AGAIN
Most of us experience even harder, during our life time:
Losing old family members — sometimes with a hard-to-watch long decline
Losing a job — not knowing what comes next to provide for our family
Going through major health events
Family feud
And some of us go through tragic situations:
Stillbirth — where your baby is born without a heartbeat
Early loss of a family member
Domestic violence
And it feels hard, every time - no matter the “size” of the hardship.
If the worst you ever went through is something from the first list - you will experience it as your extreme “hard”.
If the worst you ever went through is something from the third list - you will experience THAT as your extreme “hard” (believe me…).
We all suffer in a similar way, because our suffering is usually relative to our own experience.
And this was true about our ancestors too.
While we complain about how social media makes us depressed, our ancestors fought for food and survival on a daily basis.
To me, this “wider” view of suffering and hardship, is a little comforting.
I try reminding myself, during these situations of internal chaos, that my suffering is not special.
Other people who went through worse feel it, and people who went through “less”, feel the same suffering.
YOUR HIDDEN STRENGTH
Speaking of your ancestors…think about it for a second.
How many ancestors do you have? (no seriously, the number is tricky to calculate)
Yet, all of them survived long enough to pass own their genes.
And through the worst periods of pre-history and history!
Where is their strength?
Is it gone?
Forgotten, like them?
No!
It’s locked away, hidden, in you.
You inherited their strength.
Passed down to you like a torch.
And you are adding to it, as you face your own challenges.
UNLOCKING YOUR POTENTIAL
So what do we do about it?
I believe we have to search for this strength.
We have to dig it out.
We have to find that light within.
How?
By. Doing. Hard. Things.
Everyday.
Find challenges to face.
Find fears to overcome.
Find demons to conquer.
Find heights to climb.
Find tough conversation to have.
Find new roles to grow into.
Find conflicts you have been avoiding.
Find your own way, not of your parents, not of your spouse, not of your brothers — your own way.
Because if you don’t, you will never know what you could have become.
And that is the regret I fear most.
TAKEAWAYS
But we might take some comfort in remembering:
Most people in history had to recover from much harder situations.
Your ancestors went through worse and they passed down their strength to you.
You need to face hardship every day, to uncover the strength passed down to you.
