Albert Einstein is credited with the quote, “Adversity introduces a man to himself.” What he meant was, until you have faced adversity, you don’t know what your actions, reactions and behaviors will be.
Under all kinds of circumstances we might not ever know how we’ll react. Will we crumble? Fall apart? We don’t know until we’ve tested ourselves to answer those questions. One of those times in our lives might be right now, this very minute. Are the wheels coming off?
There’s a line I want to draw to show you a distinction between two sides of a spectrum.
On one side is the person who shies away from adversity. They often only do what they think they have to. They change when forced, and are usually being dragged along the way. They’re late to the party when it comes to the leading edge of growth and evolution. This person has very likely operated this way for a long, long time. Their lives reflect this as they’ve attempted to keep everything static and the same. The cost is numbness.
On the other side of the line is a person who not only faces challenges they often create challenges as a game to see what they’re made of. They often go towards the roar of the lion.
How we face our lives when it’s hard, how we stick with our values when it would be easier to abandon them, and how we behave when no one is looking is what makes us who we are. Not the performances. Not the optics or the show.
Sometimes we choose adversity and sometimes it comes without our control. Adversity that we can’t control is the richest kind and where we have the opportunity to truly surrender. This surrender is where we allow things to change us rather than try to think we can control everything. Adversity we control can often be reflective of the echo chamber we live in and in many ways substantiate our biases. It’s great practice and I’m a big fan of this method but works only to a point.
For me the ultimate measure of a person is their ability to keep their heart open when they’re mourning the loss of something important to them. Amidst crying, heartbreak, and pain when we keep our hearts open and not resort to numbing out is where our true depth is shown.
The falling apart and crumbling that I’m referring to is the running away, numbing out, disconnecting, and closing our hearts. In the end, when I’m losing everything that’s important to me, I want to love fully and stay connected to the ones I care about.
Values, ethics, and principles can become hazy and soft when times get tough. Life comes at us and opportunities to abandon ourselves actually happens in the minute choices and in very short periods of time. Are you ready for that?
Because of this we need to approach our lives like a scientist in a laboratory assessing and analyzing our every move. If you’re reading, this no matter how hard or challenging some events have been in your life you’re still alive so it didn’t kill you even though you might have thought it would at the time.
The opportunity:
How are you testing yourself?
What are the things in life that you don’t want to crumble when they happen?