Take on Adversity ; You've Got the Tools

LESSONS FROM CHAOS


Think about your first experiences at overcoming adversity? Maybe you were like my brother who found it nearly impossible to finish eating his vegitables before it was time for bed, or it may be that you were one of the unfortunate souls who always had their name wrote on the blackboard at school because you found it nearly impossible to remember to complete homework assignments, on time, or complete them at all. What ever your particular dilemma was, I'm sure you found a way to either deal with it, or you wallow in the resulting misery of pretending you have no control over it at all.

Sadly for me, those days consisting of a childs responsibilities packed full of in consequential consequences have been left far behind, and have been replaced by new, seemingly more important and more daunting kinds of adversity. Fortunately, I've learned allot along the way to my present point in life about handeling it, but it seems the most effective things I learned, I learned when I was that young man 35 years ago.
In fact, many solutions to problems I encountered in the past, though seemingly unrelated to current types of problems, actually do translate in some interesting ways.

My very first experience of adversity came when I was about 4 years old when I almost drowned in my dad's best friend's swimming pool. The instant I slipped and fell in, I knew I was in trouble. Alone, with no one in sight, and as I choked and gasped for air, I remember thinking to my self, "Don't give up!" By some miracle, a basket ball happened to float over to me after what seemed like ten minutes of futile thrashing. I grabbed ahold of that ball, and I'm still here.

The message here, although it aught to be obvious to everyone, is easy to overlook because it seems at times there is no basket ball floating within reach, making it all to easy to become discouraged, and accept defeat. Sadder still, if they had held out for just one more moment their basket ball would have appeared as mine had.

Another thing I learned as a youngster is you have to make a mess in order to clean it up. I remember telling myself this, way back then. I thought, at the time, that the phrase was philosophical in some way, and these days I’m convinced of it. Let me explan. When I cleaned my bedroom, I placed every out-of-place item onto the floor in the center of the room.

It looked quite bad.
Getting everything out in the open helped me determin what I would throw away, and what I would keep. Using this method, cleaning my room wasn’t such a difficult chore. How does this translate to my adulthood? Life's struggles are allot easier to handle when they are brought out in the open, identified, and can be looked at clearly in contexgt with all other aspects of my life.

For example, in college, one of my classes was being graded on a hands-on procedure. Since this procedure was to be performed on our instructors, my classmates and I were nervous to say the least.
While standing in the hall with my fellow students, I remembered to look at the over all picture. I asked myself if this was something I really needed to be anxious about. My answer was that in ten years this challenge will be a mere memory. Whether I passed or failed, life would go on.

This “making a mess before itcan be cleaned also applies to situations where owning up to a wrong doing causes brief turmoil, which is necessary before the calm waters of a peaceful soul can return. I learned to apply this in seventh grade when Mrs. Scalzo my English teacher caught me in a lie. I told her that I did my homework but left it home on the table. After she called home to ask my mom to see if it was there, I learned that it would have been allot easier for me if I had simply owned up to not doing it at all. Owning up to it would have caused a bit of discomfort, but not nearly as much as lieing did.

The way this translates to my adult life is pretty simple. When ever I make a mistake, I don’t try making excuses for it, and I don’t try blaming the mistake on other people, I claim the mistake. There is an old saying that goes along with this: “If you never made a mistake, then you never did anything.”

Thankfully, the tools we gain dealing with adversity in our childhoods can be taken with us and used in our adulthoods. It’s too bad life has to present so many challenges for us to deal with. The fact that she does, though, doesn’t mean we should throw our hands up in defeat. That would be a shame, especially when we have those many tools at our disposal. It may take a little thinking on your part to translate how these lessons can apply today, but when adversity presents its self , don’t give up, persevere and take control