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Introduction
Imagine a world where you could get whatever you wanted without having to put in any effort. No struggles, no failures, no obstacles. That would be great, wouldn’t it? Who wouldn’t want to live a life without struggle or failure? We all want that, don’t we? But the truth is, a person who doesn’t experience a little bit of struggle in life is a weak one. When life throws a challenge at them, they won’t be able to handle it. They’ll end up wasting all the amazing things they’ve gotten. Why? Because they don’t know how to deal with obstacles, failure, and negative feedback from the world.
Most of the people who are the strongest and the most successful are the ones who have encountered a series of challenges. It’s unfortunate that no matter how much we may want a perfect life without challenges, it’s just not possible. This world is full of all kinds of inevitable challenges. But it is these inevitable challenges that make us stronger and help us purse our aspirations in life.
People that reach the pinnacle of their aspirations are those that embrace adversity and use it as a steppingstone for growth. Adversity is a period in life when you are faced with extreme hardship, challenges, difficulties, or misfortune. Adversity is inevitable in life. And each of us has either or will get a feel of it as we walk through life thus the need for embracement. Embracing adversity is acknowledging the existence of difficult situations and making a conscious effort to find lessons out of them.
Angles through which adversity may manifest.
Adversity can come in all shapes and sizes, from physical to mental to emotional to relational to social to spiritual to financial. We all must deal with it at some point, it’s just part of life. Most of us have experienced moments when life felt like the biggest challenge we’ve ever faced. Some of us have wanted to get away from our problems, not knowing that it’s the worst thing we could do while dealing with the challenges we’re facing.
Whether we run or not, we’re all going to face more obstacles and challenges as we move through life. Our businesses may fail, we may enter debt, lose huge chunks of money or our property may turn into vanish, our relationships may not work out, we may lose our loved ones to death. Loved ones, friends, or we ourselves may fall sick, accidents or tragedy may happen, we may lose a job, we may be rejected or may get imprisoned due to false accusations and so on. Therefore, because we are not challenge exempted, we need to be mindful and embrace what challenges life throw at us so that we may be able to face them heads-on and grow through them.
Whether we embrace adversity or not; the choice is ours
Whether you turn a lemon (adversity) into a lemonade (personal growth) or (personal decline); the choice is yours to make. We can never control what life throw at us, but we can can choose our response. Two people facing the same difficulty will perceive it differently. Whereas a timid person may be tempted to thrown in the towel; a growth minded person will instead focus on the lesson to be learnt out of their misfortune and thus grow throw their difficulty. In his book “Stop Worrying and Start Living” Dale Carnegie Stated:
‘When you have a lemon, make lemonade.’ “That is what a great educator does. But the fool does the exact opposite. If he finds that life has handed him a lemon, he gives up and says: “I’m beaten. It is fate. I haven’t got a chance.” Then he proceeds to rail against the world and indulge in an orgy of self-pity. But when the wise man is handed a lemon, he says: “What lesson can I learn from this misfortune? How can I improve my situation? How can I turn this lemon into a lemonade?” (Dale Carnegie – How to Stop Worrying and Start Living)
Turning a lemon into a lemonade suggest the idea of being optimistic and embracing the positive can-do attitude in the face of adversity or misfortune. A lemon is citrus fruit containing acidic juice that give rise to a sour taste. Like the taste of a lesson, so does adversity taste. Usually it is a sour, difficult and undesirable period of life that no one desires to encounter.
A lemonade on the other hand, is a sweetened lemon-flavored drink. To make a lemonade you squeeze the sour juice out of a lemon. Then you add sugar and other tasty flavors to it which reduces the sourness, thus turning the lemon juice into a tasty and desirable drink . That’s how turning an adversity into a lemonade look like. By focusing on adding flavors to your adversity like personal growth and lessons, your difficulty becomes desirable, and it becomes easier to get through with more ease.
It takes courage to embrace adversity and grow through it.
Let take an example of Paul, one of the prominent bible characters. As it is recorded in Acts 9 Paul was a persecutor of Christ; the greatest enemy of the church, but when he was filled with the holy spirit experienced a change in his heart and became an Apostle (God’s gospel minister). Paul recounts his sufferings as an Apostle in (2 Corinthians 11:16-32) and one of the prominent adversities he faced was imprisonment. Paul was imprisoned for 2 years as recorded in Acts 28:30-31. But he continued rejoicing welcoming who ever came to see him and spreading God’s kingdom.
Paul turned a lemon into a lemonade. He embraced his adversity which is the lemon (imprisonment) and turned it into a lemonade (growth). Paul focused on preaching the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ while speaking with boldness and freedom despite the fact he was in prison. In addition, we wrote 4 epistles (Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon) that are now part of the New Testament. Hadn’t Paul used his difficult time to grow through the 4 epistle we wouldn’t have them as part of the bible today.
It takes courage to grow and only a courageous person can embrace lemons and turn them into lemonade. Or better, only a courageous person like Paul can turn an adversity season into a personal growth season. A courageous person is one who never give up their strength despite the circumstance. Courage is one’s ability to possess emotional strength and intelligence in the face of adversity. Being courageous is more of a choice than a trait. So, choose for yourself today whether you will pick courage or cowardice. But know that only courage will provide you with strength to embrace your adversity and enable you grow through it.
Summing up
Adversity is part of life, and no one is exempted from it. With a right perspective you will notice that it is through difficult times that we learn the most important lessons in life. And that is why we should fully embrace it so that we do not deprive ourselves from the benefits it offers. In moments when emotions like anxiety, self-doubt, sadness, worry, fear, frustration are taking place in our lives; adversity often presents opportunities we might otherwise miss. Instead of seeing difficult times as a defeat or discouragement, see them as opportunities for self-improvement and growth. Strive to make a lemonade out of each lemon life presents you. When you encounter adversity, use that period as an opportunity to find insight, gain knowledge, wisdom, understanding and make positive changes in your life.
Don’t miss out the on the fact the adversity is the soil through which personal growth flourishes. Let your ultimate goal as you pass through difficult times be personal growth and self-improvement. You may not wish for adversity to locate you. But it may be the best thing you may need to fulfill your aspirations. Note that if you don’t have failures, no struggles. If you don’t have disappointments and challenges, then you can never grow or stretch to the next level. We do not grow when things are easy. But grow when we face challenges. Getting past challenges is a mental game you can win. You will never know how far you can go unless you are faced with adversities. And the faster you learn to embrace them, the faster you will get through them and come out stronger or courageous with positive results.
Reflection
How do you usually perceive challenges that life throws at you? Do you look at them as defeat, disappointment and end up throwing in the towel? Or do you embrace them and use them as steppingstones for personal growth? When facing adversity, do you usually approach it with a fixed or growth mindset? How do you perceive personal growth unfolding to you if you changed your perspective or embraced a growth mindset. Could there be mental barriers preventing you from embracing adversity as a potential source of growth? Resist these barriers and maximize the period when you are in pain to grow and cultivate positive changes in your life.
**********Thank you for sparing your time to read*********
