The Blessing of Adversity: The Secret to a Happy Life

Adversity and crisis; What goes through your mind when you hear these words? Do you conjure up feelings of fear and anxiety, start to sweat, or do you want to run away?

If this is the case, you are not the only one, most of us have the same initial reaction, but what if we looked at our difficulties in a new way instead of being afraid of them and trying to avoid them? What if we see our adversity as a blessing?

One of the benefits of living a long time on this earth is knowing that we learn our most important lessons in life when we encounter problems, not when we enjoy a good life. These moments make us stop, look at ourselves, try to improve ourselves, and focus on the important things in life.

I know this, I wondered to myself why did I have to learn the hard way? This is because the hard way is the solid foundation upon which pivotal changes in our personalities are built.

Although the impact of our self-monitoring is important, how we view difficulties is also important. Not only does our perception affect our mental health; but also in our physical health. In fact, some people believe that our happiness is linked to how we view adversity.

The basis of happiness

Emma Sappala of Stanford University writes, "Enduring adversity rather than only partially embracing it is the secret to a happy life and an opportunity to grow and gain wisdom."

The idea that suffering leads to good things is rooted in ancient Chinese culture and wisdom. They believed that hardships come, and that suffering has one purpose, which is to help us understand and improve ourselves; Thus, we attain virtue and goodness. Accepting this concept is essential to achieving personal growth.

"We can choose to let bad experiences get us down or to put up with them, so we can move on," Sabala continues. Our acceptance of life and our perspective on suffering, as well as how we deal with it, are the most important of all.

Sabala adds, “By understanding that our lives are built on contradictions, we begin to feel gratitude and reach a higher level of understanding and wisdom. When we look at difficulties in this way, we gain peace of mind and clarity of mind instead of avoiding them; this is one of the greatest lessons that humanity has passed on from one generation to the next.” over thousands of years.

Look at it as the Stoics do

Ancient Chinese civilization was not the only traditional culture that believed in the inevitability of suffering. The Stoic philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome understood this as well, as Isaac Wechuli of Unbounded wisdom discovered the importance of enduring hardship to maintain the inner peace that is often synonymous with happiness.

Through experience, he came to appreciate the Stoic wisdom when he discovered that no one, no matter how hard he tried, could escape suffering and problems; He said: "Adversity is part of the process of life, as accepting it gives us inner peace because we will stop worrying when we expect difficulties and will not be depressed or stressed when they occur."

If we observe the lives of the Stoic philosophers, we will see many stories that show great resistance in the face of great hardships, when they understood that trying to escape from the hardships of life is a failure, instead, they searched in their depths for enough strength to withstand the odds.

The Stoic philosophers focused on living a life full of virtue and in line with nature. They believed that the advantage of character that we always have and that nothing can take away from us is the most important, while other things such as money and fame are things that fade and that we cannot control, so we must stay away from them.

Psychiatrist Donald Robertson believes that Stoic philosophy has had a major influence in his field of work. Deciding to highlight it in his book How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, he examines the application of the wisdom of Stoic philosophy and the ideas of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius to the everyday problems of contemporary life.

Our framing plays a big role, Robertson points out: "If someone is anxious during a meeting, they'll say, 'His words were like bullets,' whereas they could say, 'He voiced his disapproval to me.'" It is something that shows up during psychotherapy sessions. If you describe the same subject in a more logical and objective way and give it a lower value, it will seem less troublesome. The Stoics were well aware of this problem.”

Have you noticed the different effect of the two sentences on you? We learn from the Stoics that the main influence in the course of our lives is not the event; It is our reaction toward it.

For the Stoic, there is no value to things outside the framework of our rational choice and what they mean to us personally. This way of thinking strips external events of their power of influence on us and places this power in our hands, or rather in our minds.

Universal link

You might feel some relief knowing that these adversities affect us all, as they seem to be the universal equivalent on this earth without excluding anyone. People who have achieved great success always have experiences with hardships and failures; That's because things of great value don't come easy.

For example, the scientist Thomas Edison tested ten thousand failed attempts before he achieved success, and when a journalist asked him about his failed experiments, he replied, "I did not fail 10,000 times, not even once; rather, I proved that these 10,000 are failed methods." By eliminating failed experiments, we can find a way to work."

Many people would have given up before reaching 10,000 trials; He considered his experiences a valuable lesson, not a failure. So keep trying.

As for former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, he had enough hardships. As he lost five electoral campaigns during his political career, and he was suffering from a linguistic lisp that made speeches or even speaking difficult at times, and despite this Churchill became one of the most successful politicians and the greatest orators the world knew.

Difficulties and hardships come in many forms, they serve us with two goals that are a test and a life lesson for us. Today we are living with the Corona pandemic, which has had devastating results, but there are many lessons to learn.

Adriana Bankston, the principal legislative analyst with the Office of Federal Government Relations, points to this in an article for Inside Higher Ed; "Optimists see every crisis as an opportunity to improve themselves and perhaps support others, and they see the long-term results of their choice," she writes.

Discover our strengths

Adversity reveals many places within us that we did not know existed, whether they were good or bad. By motivating us to discover these aspects, adversity helps us to improve and develop these things in order to align with our higher values by strengthening what we call self-development.

Wacholi notes, "Epictetus, one of the most famous of the Stoic philosophers, had written, 'Who would be Hercules if there were no lion, hydra, stag, and criminals to get rid of?'" What would he do in the absence of hardships? And what would these two hands, this physical strength, and this noble spirit do, were it not for the crises and events that he dealt with?

Of course, when we go through hardships during our lives, we search in our depths to find strength and reach wisdom. Often, many of our noble qualities will remain dormant and will not reach their highest level if we do not engage in challenges; That's because tough times give us a chance to improve ourselves. We are here to face our fears and take the opportunity to act in spite of everything.

As Samuel Baxter writes in Days of Adversity’: Lessons From the Great Depression, people who lived through the Great Depression are known for their work ethic, perseverance, creativity, and character. What is the secret of the 1930s that led to this group being called the “Great Generation” later on?

As Alison Ensign adds, perhaps because of the hardships they endured, this generation possessed strength that will not be found in other generations. She points out that they show many impressive qualities such as a high sense of personal responsibility, humility, high professional ethics, commitment, integrity, and sacrifice for the sake of the other, all of which are characteristics of a highly moral personality.

Perhaps hardships are beneficial to us; It is by facing our fears and pains rather than seeking comfort and prosperity that we learn and grow. In fact, the obstacles that stand in our way are the way to not allowing anything external to control us.

Accept the hardships

When faced with hardships, we must act as nature does. Even in times of adversity when all seems lost and destroyed, buds bloom from the remains of the burning forest. Life goes on. Nature never stops moving forward in the face of disaster, just as we must; This is because nature teaches us to endure and persevere even when we lose hope.

We will learn when we accept what life gives us in reality without resisting it, the lesson it carries. Difficulties do not happen without a reason; It offers us a blessing and an opportunity to improve ourselves.

George Bailey says in the book "It's a Wonderful Life", we may think that our hardships are too much to bear, and we may feel despair at times, but if we take a step back, we will find that our problems are easier than we felt.

As the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca understood, "a precious stone is not polished without friction, nor is one perfected without trials."

No matter how bad you feel now, this will not last forever, and when we look back, these hardships will lose their bitterness. Remember this is important, our brain is capable of making things seem worse than they are; It's because we've gotten through the bad times before and we can do it again.

We all have freedom of choice; We can look at difficulties as a failure and lack of luck, or see them as opportunities that increase our stability, endurance, compassion, courage, resistance, patience, forgiveness, and our ability to sacrifice.

While hardships offer us the greatest opportunity to develop our character, there are so many good things to gain and so many negative things to leave, whichever path we choose is entirely up to us.