Life is not fair, nor is it easy. During your time on earth, you will learn so many life lessons from adversity. And yes, these lessons will prepare you for even more challenges.
At various stages of your life, you will face various challenges. And there will always be life lessons to learn from this adversity. Whether you lose a job, leave a long-term relationship, or grieve the loss of a family member, you’re going to suffer. I sound negative, but I’m just trying to be real with you.
What you can learn from adversity
Life lessons will sober you up quickly. They will make you do self-inventory and see things from different perspectives. Lessons learned from adversity can even change your life completely. And what are these lessons? Well, let’s look.
1. Know yourself
One of the lessons you will learn during and after tough times is who you are. Yes, you know your name, age, where you were born, and who your relatives are, but do you really know you until you suffer? No, you do not.
When you go through adversity, you learn your limitation, your selfish levels, and patterns, both negative and positive. After each hardship, you get to know yourself even better.
2. Learn gratitude
After adversity, you tend to learn how to be more grateful than you were before. Although you may have lost things during the tough trials, you can see what you have left and just how blessed you are to have these remaining things in your life. It’s funny how when life takes things away, we tend to be more thankful, isn’t it?
3. True support
In life, we have many friends, and we enjoy their company during the good times. But what happens when we’re faced with adversity? How many of these friends, companions, loved ones, and family are truly standing by our side? It seems to thin out, doesn’t it?
What we learn in this aspect is that those who absolutely love us for who we are will still be there to support us during our worst days. So, when things go south, look around. Who’s standing with you? This is a hard but important lesson to learn.
4. Pushes change
I am one of those people who love their comfort zones, and I suffer for it too. Well, when adversity strikes, I am ripped from that comfort zone and forced to make serious decisions. The truth is, these decisions are usually overdone, and yet, I hide away in avoidance.
Adversity will give you the strength to face change and make change. Because once you’ve been pulled from your comfort zone, you may not have a choice.
5. Compassion
When you go through tough times in life, it will hurt. But afterward, you’ve learned a special lesson. You are now much more compassionate than before.
The reason your sensitivity levels increase is that you’ve been through hard times, and you can relate to others now who are going through the same things. You now can be there for others with strength and comfort to share.
6. Lessons about control
Adversity will teach us that we cannot control everything. Yes, we can have self-control, but we cannot control others, situations, or environments. In this lesson, we learn to become pliable and humble at the same time. Learning that we cannot control everything also reminds us that we should be better prepared for what may happen in our lives.
7. Helps us laser focus
When we go through negative times in our lives, soon after, we’ve learned how to laser-focus on what we want. Sure, we may have some ideas about our goals and dreams, but when challenging times hit, we see more clearly.
This is usually due to learning our limitations and true character. It helps us understand what we need to adjust, and our strengths. With all this knowledge, we re-focus, and the path is easier.
8. We learn resilience!
So, times get dark, and I mean, darker than dark. What will you do? Well, one thing is for certain, you should never give up. And if you don’t, you will become even better at not giving up. You will learn how to be resilient.
Strength will become one of your greatest character traits, and you can feed off this strength in the future. Some of the most heart-wrenching episodes of your life will be soothed by the strength of your soul.
9. Different perspectives
When adversity comes along, you will not like it, well, not at first. However, after some time, you may learn how to see things from a unique perspective.
Maybe you don’t like the lifestyle of your adult children, and it’s making you feel down. Over time, you may be able to see things through their eyes and understand that not everyone thinks as you do.
Have you noticed that during our time cementing our standards, that we forgot to be open-minded? Well, adversity, or in this case, unfamiliar lifestyles, will open our eyes to possibilities we never thought we could manage. But look at us handling that stuff, just look.
10. Learn to love harder
When troubled times come, we learn a great and powerful lesson. We learn how to love harder. We learn that no matter how much the pain rips into us, we can still love. Now, that doesn’t mean tolerating abuse and that sort of thing. You can love and still not surround yourself with the problem, you know.
I mean a higher love this is what we learn to do when things get unbearable. If we must, we can walk away, but we should never let that universal love die inside of us. We just love much harder than before. That includes loving ourselves as we should.
Life lessons of adversity
There are other life lessons we can learn from adversity, but these are some of the most powerful ones. Take some time and think about where you are in life – instead of complaining about what you do not have, be thankful.
Instead of worrying, try to practice a bit of faith. And, instead of holding that grudge, try to let go. After all, the only one you hurt, by holding onto past adversity, is you. So, embrace these lessons, and enjoy the feeling of true freedom.
And keep learning.
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Very Stoic.
It is only in retrospect that I see the gains from adversity. The lows of my life have shown me who really cares about me – the ones who didn’t run away when I was down. Adversity made me go deep inside myself to to learn that I must face the light and not let despair overwhelm me. It’s not that I don’t recognize corruption and cruelty, it a mindset that you focus on the light and joy. When this becomes strong, darkness will recede from you.
Marcia R.
Marcia,
Enduring hardships throughout life makes you stronger, as you probably already know. One of the things I’ve learned most recently is that your story changes shape over time too. When you once thought you were a victim, you can look back with different eyes and see dark parts you played of your own, and you were not the only victim.
I think this has been one of the hardest lessons I’ve had to swallow. Hearing your children tell you the toxic things you did when they were growing up makes you step back and re-evaluate your past. You get to see things from their perspective, and sometimes they were right and sometimes mistaken. Either way, you get to be honest with yourself and face those adversities too.
But we must always focus on the light because the darkness will only get darker if we keep staring into it. And we cannot go back in time to change anything. We only do better and be better as we grow. Thank you for reading.
Harold,
There is emotion here. It’s just that a person gets tired of weeping over all the pain and just decides to do what needs to be done. It’s difficult, but to find any semblance of peace, standing strong is how you find that.
But we all crumble from time to time. Be blessed