Why you should embrace a good struggle 

Watching TV commercials is fascinating these days. Cars have become laptops with wheels taking over more and more stuff drivers had to think about about and do. Other commercials try selling gizmos designed to make life easier and cheaper. Really? Is easier always better? I recently got stuck behind a car at a car wash for a while as none of the car wash attendants knew how to drive stick shift. All other customers had to wait until the person whose car it was, drove it out to the drying station.

Learning how to deal with difficulty and overcoming adversity is a good thing. Life is meant to be a little difficult sometimes. Only if we are stretched to struggle, do our minds and bodies stay healthy and nimble. We also feel good about ourselves when we survive difficult moments. I invite you to ponder whether you want an easy life, or one of significance? Do you believe in filling your life and house with stuff, or do revel in the relationships that you have formed with the people who mean the most to you? In many ways life is like a camping trip. Do you take a triple axle RV packed with all the comforts that will not let you miss “home”? Or do you want to experience nature and people at eye level, but that may come with a little discomfort and pain?

I recently read a fabulous book (Get more details about “The Adversity Advantage”) about blind mountaineer Erik Weihenmayer. He has climbed 7 of the world’s most difficult summits. Blind, you may ask? Yes, blind. There is probably very little that can top this level of adversity. Yet he did it. There are a few lessons that we can take away from his experiences:

• How much suffering and pain do you have in your life? Compare that to the feat of not having your eyesight and yet hiking and climbing up to summits that even the most experienced folks may never be able to reach. Take inventory of your life. Is it really that bad? Mental re-framing of the severity of your situation is a very important step to getting through it. It is most of all a mental challenge and therefore a CHOICE you make. It is not what happens to you. It is how you choose to deal with it.
• We need to suffer a little (some more than others) in order to learn. We need to suffer a little in order to appreciate what we have. It is too late when we no longer have it. Don’t live a life of regret.
• It is all about how we suffer. Do you whitewash your pain? Do you blissfully ignore it? Do you wallow in suffering? Do you feel like every little issue is ruining your day turning into ballooning catastrophes? Do you escape by using / abusing alcohol, drugs, food, sex such that you numb your pain? Or do you grief and be angry for a little while, but then you see the blessing in the suffering that you have just gone through? How about all the opportunities that have just opened up for you?
• Do you help people when you are doing well? We should, shouldn’t we? Do you help people when you are not doing well and you are struggling yourself? That is the ultimate summit you have the opportunity 0f climbing: Significance comes from lifting up people during life’s lows.
  Blind mountain climber Erik organized a climb to one of the seven top summits with blind, physical handicapped, and folks with no “impairments” (rhetorical question: when you manage climbing Mount Everest blind, are you really impaired?). This group set out to win as a team and managed to get there with 24 out of 27 people. While it was surely a personal victory of his, don’t you think that he has managed to positively impact the life of the other 27 people forever?

Your suffering and adversity overcoming skills are like your muscles. It takes years to develop them, but lack of use and abuse will shrink them and will end up living a weak life void of significance. Embrace the challenges life throws at you and be grateful for what you have every day.

Ralf