Can You Really Learn From Hardship?
When you’re going through hard times and well-meaning people or self-help gurus tell you to take this as an opportunity to learn and grow as a person…your first thought is generally to punch these people in the face.
Can we actually learn and grow from our hardships?
Hard times will befall us all at some stage in our lives. Some people have it far worse than others and some people seem to have an easy ride. But look closer. Different people will experience the same hardship in very different ways and I believe the key to getting through hard times, and yes, actually learning and growing from them, is to adopt The Rule of Acceptance.
There are things you can control and things you can’t control. There are things that happen to you because of a decision you made, and also circumstances that befall us through no fault of our own.
It doesn’t matter what has happened or how it happened. What matters is that it has happened and it is what it is. The problem we have as a society is when hard times befall us, the first reaction is to look for someone to blame. If someone else is to blame then it is not my fault and therefore, I am not a failure and my circumstances will be seen sympathetically by my friends and peers. This reaction to look for blame is doing more damage to you as a person than the actual issues you face. As soon as you look to blame, you lose any sense of self responsibility, not responsibility for the hard times you are facing, I mean responsibility to accept that you are where you are, and to work with the situation rather than against it.
When you can accept a situation for what it is, without looking to blame someone or something, and without looking at yourself as a failure, then you are a long way ahead of 99% of everyone else on the planet. Accept the circumstances, they are neither good nor bad…they just are.
This is what is meant by the Buddhist philosophy of “The obstacle is the way”.
