In a world where comfort is king and adversity is shunned, our modern pursuit of pleasure stands in stark contrast to the ancient Greeks who welcomed hardship as a path to growth and vitality.
The way of life has undergone a profound change since the Classical Greek era.
While we try to make life as comfortable as possible, to live a life filled with comfort and pleasure.
The Greeks embraced hardship and adversity. They didn’t avoid obstacles, they charged at it head first. They saw the obstacles as the way out.
The former inevitability leads to shallow misery while the latter leads to growth and vitality.
“I know of no better life purpose than to perish in attempting the great and impossible. The fact that something seems impossible shouldn’t be a reason to not pursue it. That’s exactly what makes it worth pursuing. Where would the courage and greatness be if success was certain and there was no risk? The only true failure is shrinking away from life’s challenges.”
Instead of cowering away from the challenges life throws at us, embrace it.
Life has allowed you to grow, to develop, to evolve, and you hesitate, you falter, you shy away from it.
Imagine you’re on your deathbed, and standing around your deathbed are the ghosts representing your unfulfilled potential.
They’re angry, disappointed and upset.
They say, “We came to you because you could have brought us to life but now we have to go to the grave together.”
Never forget that within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our conditions.
The Obstacle Is The Way : Mastering Success Amidst Pain and Hardship
When faced with adversity, we complain.
“This is unfair”
“Why does it have to happen to me.”
Where does that get you?
You may not have control over what happens to you but you do have control over how you respond to it.
When you view every obstacle and challenge as an opportunity to grow, setbacks cease to exist.
The way you perceive the situation is inherently what it becomes.
We have become so used to comfort and pleasure that we falter at the slightest hint of hardship.
That is no way to live a meaningful life.
Heroes like Heracles and Odysseus didn’t live their lives that way.
Neither did Alexander the Great, Napoleon and Julius Caesar.
They saw the obstacle, not as a setback, but as an opportunity to test themselves and to grow.
If you desire to achieve greatness you must can not shy away from the slightest bit of hardship.
You must reforge your mind to embrace it.
You must forge it into one that can withstand adversity, suffering, pain and hardship.
Forging Mental Resilience: Building Strength to Navigate Hardship and Adversity
Like a muscle, mental growth only occurs under stress.
Avid gym goers look forward to failure.
They embrace it. They purposefully push themselves to it.
Why?
Because they know that only by pushing themselves to failure can the muscles grow.
Likewise, you should train your mind to seek hardship and withstand the stress it puts it under.
Here are two exercises that you can implement now that will help you build your resilience to suffering and pain :
Cold Showers
The thought of a warm shower on a rainy day is delightful.
A warm shower is comfortable and relaxing.
Standing under a shower-head and shooting out warm water is easy.
Standing under one shooting out cold water is difficult.
It’s discomforting and unpleasant.
As you transition from warm to cold showers, focus on cultivating resilience.
At first, it will be difficult, you will cower away from the freezing water.
When you build up the courage to get in, it will only be for a few seconds.
The practice becomes more manageable and less challenging the more you do it.
Early Mornings
Like a warm shower, sleeping in is easy and pleasurable.
On the other hand, consistent early mornings are demanding and require discipline.
Some days, you will be tired but you must push on.
With certain challenges in life, you will face them when you’re exhausted.
But by training your mind to resist the temptation to take the easy way out, you will be able to withstand and overcome the challenge thrown at you.
Like colder showers, the goal is to build a mind resilient to difficulty.
Steer Clear of This Common Mistake
You will be building new habits.
To implement new habits, you must get rid of new ones.
It’s easier said than done.
The most common mistake individuals make when implementing new habits is making too big of a change too fast.
Remember, habits are acts that have been consistently repeated over some time.
You can not expect these habits, which have taken months to build, to be deconstructed and replaced overnight.
The most efficient way to implement new habits is by slowly making changes.
For example, I want to build the habit of waking up at 6:00 am instead of 10:00 am.
The switch from 10:00 am to 6:00 am is a big one.
I can challenge myself by making one big change, but I will almost certainly fail to be consistent.
So, instead, I will make seven small changes over seven days.
On day one, I will wake up at 9:30 am.
On day two, I will wake up at 9:00 am.
On day three, I will wake up at 8:30 am.
You get the gist of it.
What will you make of it?
You can go about your life like before and walk down a path to shallow misery.
Or you can make the changes you know you need and rebuild yourself.
The choice is yours.
A life of shallow misery or one of growth and vitality.