Why Persevere and Not Just Give Up?

"Problems are not problems—they are lessons to be learned. Growth waiting to happen. Cutting yourself off from the growth is regression, isolation. You must embrace your difficulty and rejoice in it. Because it will catapult you to greater victories to come."
- Solomon (Ch. 13)

Oh how many times through the years have we heard variations of this same sentiment? "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" etc. Definitely inspiring ideas. Encouraging in times of those inevitable challenges of life that even the best and brightest among us cannot escape. Ive been fabulously rich and I've been dirt poor and I can guarantee with certainty that life is much better, more enjoyable and easier when you are rich. But it's no less challenging. The problems of life just manifest in different ways.
My wife and I have suffered(?) / experienced four miscarriages in the last five years, two of them with twins. That is a pain a trauma a tragedy that no amount of money can make any more enjoyable less painful or palatable. Only time and a willingness to integrate fully can help ease that pain.

Sure having money would and will make this particular problem easier, because it opens more potential doors of opportunity for us to still be able to birth our children into this world eventually. Whether adoption or surrogate mother, both are wildly surprisingly and cost prohibitively expensive. Options only people who are wealthy would ever be able to consider or afford. The average adoption costs $60,000. Don't get me started on how much I loath this commonly known fact. A surrogate mother will come in at $50,000 easily; and that's regardless of whether you get a baby out of the deal of not.

Life it seems, at least if you're fully living it, comes with a cornucopia of what any of us would label challenges crises tragedies problems and difficulties. Rich or poor. Black brown red yellow or white. But it's the "how we deal with them" that seems of most import.

The quote above rings true, FEELS true. Not just from an intellectual viewpoint but from the experience of living life perspective as well. The question of course is "why? How?" Why must we embrace life's challenges? Rejoice? Seriously? And how does it help or do us any good? Why not mourn bitch moan complain whine kick and stomp our feet? Allow cynicism to set in and strengthen our inner and outer armor to better shield us from the next inevitable incoming heartbreak? In fact why not just give up entirely? Stop believing in miracles and trying so hard? Certainly less disappointment lies ahead if we aim low and don't allow ourselves to dream up such lofty ideals about what is possible.

For some this IS the path. Whether deliberate or unconscious, life begins to slowly wear us down. We stop believing in the ridiculous the absurd the miraculous. We stop expecting things to be easy or anticipating great moments of bliss and victory. Instead we just hang on as best we can an hope for the best. But overall we stop trying. We stop shooting for the stars. Fuck drops of Jupiter. We're not even going to fly me to the moon.

And yet every now and then we read simple platitudinous quotes like the above and feel that spark of hope inside once more. We hear stories of others who overcome incredible odds to achieve tremendous things. They never say they accomplished these things from giving up or from coasting or from losing hope or strapping on a cynical suit of armor.

The story seems to be always the same. They fully embrace the pain the agony the trauma. They mourn and ache. Deeply. They scream and cry and ask "why me?!". And then they dust themselves off get back in their horse and ride on. Beaten up but not bested. Stronger healthier and usually even more willful to succeed, even if success simply means to enjoy life again.

What is it about this method that works for us? What about this piece about embracing and rejoicing? I would submit that, as opposed to Solomon's view stated above, difficulties are indeed still often times "problems", at least to the perceiver; though the "embracing and rejoicing" of these perceived difficulties seems to lessen the emotional charge and resistance we feel towards them. Once fully experienced, fully integrated, WE take control of them, as opposed to feeling controlled by them or feeling victim to them.

This process make us feel stronger, more capable of overcoming them and others that may come our way in the future. Once overcome we become feel and appear bigger stronger more powerful. More adept at facing whatever life throws at us. We feel more confident. Through deliberate and thoughtful acceptance and yes even rejoicing of the worst of it all we create new ceilings, higher, stronger. Wisdom ensues. A grace of wisdom and confidence. Newfound power and inner strength is found. Not the kind that's put on or asserted. But something much deeper stronger and more substantial.

We've grown beyond what we previously thought impossible. Surviving is the least of it. Damn right we survived. But we did more than that. After that, my God we just might be able to do anything. We begin to believe we can do more than just survive; we can thrive. Because we've faced the worst and made it through. We didn't allow it to break us down but instead we compelled it to build us up. And that is growth. An inner power beyond the limits of explanation with words.

- Posted by The Ambassador using BlogPress on an iPhone