Adversity Adds Meaning To Life
Saad Gul
Popular internet culture makes us believe that if our daily life experiences are not perpetually positive, social, colourful, pain free and happy, that there’s something wrong with us. This has forced most people to constantly chase happiness – which in and of itself is a negative experience. Enslaved to smartphones and social media, many are constantly experiencing feelings of inadequacy i.e. ‘not good enough’; many are unable to experience the joy and wonder of the present moment because they’re constantly ruminating about the past or attempting to escape to a distant future.
Buying into this narrative that we must always be happy, fulfilled and positive, however, is not a good proposition because life is full of ebbs and flows. Whether we like it or not, pain, suffering, discrimination and unfairness will present themselves to us through different stages of life, proving that adversity is natural. Our problems, which can be related to our health, relationships, finances, career and business, will always arise from time to time. Everyone experiences them at some point in life.
Therefore, in order to develop realistic models of the world and to keep us moving forward when we hit rock bottom, we must embrace adversity and stray away from the narratives that generally society and social media wants us to buy into. Seeing adversity as our enemy – as victims perceive it – can lead to a false perception of reality which can ultimately lead to uncontrollable amounts of anger and resentment as we grow older.
Consider this for a moment: structural (competence) hierarchies – which have existed for over 300 million years – within the animal kingdom, families, workspaces, governments, economies and geographies are proof that life can be discriminatory and unfair.
However, this doesn’t mean that we should just give up, accept things as they are and do nothing about our current situation. Humans are resilient creatures that were made to evolve. We can become stronger and face life’s challenges with more courage.
This is an opportunity to become stronger and braver. Only once we accept the (unfair and arbitrary nature of) reality, can we use reason and logic to determine where we currently stand and how much work we ought to put in to turn dreams into reality.
It takes cultivating a desire to take responsibility for ourselves – as well as those around us – so that the overall quality of life improves. It takes a commitment, persistence and daily hard work to become stronger. Perhaps, in pursuit of a life where net positive thoughts, emotions and actions outweigh the net negative. Minimising rumination and self-flagellation.
Overcoming challenges, setbacks, failures, disappointments, rejections and heartbreaks is difficult but how we respond to crisis is what determines how strong our character is. It is also what gives meaning to life. Unlike the instant gratification that is derived from dopaminergic hits that we derive from tapping our smartphone screens or indulging in instant worldly pleasures, temptations and distractions that chip away at our character.
When something is ‘bugging’ us, it is literally a call to action; an opportunity to complete a pending task, fix a relationship, change our unhealthy patterns into healthier ones, or learn a life lesson that is long overdue but we had been ignoring.
Adversity is beautiful. Without it, life would be meaningless.
Discomfort, confusion, pain, tragedy, heartbreaks and hardship are all opportunities to learn, grow, adapt and evolve. It is life’s way of inviting us to a call to action. We ALL go through this at some point in life – through varying kinds and degrees of challenges and situations.
It helps to cultivate this perspective: “This is happening for me. Not to me. I’m going to stay with this thought/situation, instead of avoiding it, until I identify why it happened, accept it and then overcome it.”
Ebbs and flows are necessary – that’s what the human experience is all about. There is a divine duality within the laws that govern the universe: night gives way to day, darkness allows for light to emerge, love drives out hate, there are females and males, positive and negative, disorder and structure.
Similarly, adversity allows us to appreciate the beautiful side of life. It gives us perspective. It is up to us what meaning we choose to give to our experiences in life. We have to learn to love our fate. As Friedrich Nietzsche describes it:
“My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it… but love it.”
