Winning in the midst of a losing battle!

At times I’d hear people complaining about the the most minuscule things and wish they’d toughen up. On other occasions, someone would be going through unthinkable trials. Despite their struggles, they wouldn’t even entertain the thought of feeling sorry for themselves. Meeting people like that makes me wonder why I don’t toughen up.

We all have different levels of resilience. It’s not something we’ve inherited, but rather the level of knowledge we have of what’s really important in life.

The reason why so many of us have a waning capacity to deal with difficulties, is that we have the notion that everything is about comfort. The focus is on “ME”. Hans Christian Andersen might have had a different moral for his story – “The princess and the pea” – but I’ve come up with this one: COMFORT STEALS OUR RESILIENCE. Even when lying on a pile of awesomely, comfortable mattresses, we feel uncomfortable. The reason being, a pea under the bottom one.

If someone tells us to jump off a cliff, would we do it? Probably not! Why then do we listen to society when it tells us to focus on “Me” and “my comfort”? It is killing the potential we have to make this world a better place. Once we understand that life is about loving others, we start living a life of purpose and we get a glimpse of what it’s all about.

The more we have… the more we want… the unhappier we become. We can never have everything. That means if our focus is on comfort and “stuff”, we will never be happy. So when something doesn’t go our way, we tend to see it as a loss, rather than an opportunity. There is no personal growth in the comfort zone. Where we grow is in the challenges. That is where our resilience is banked.

Jesus said “You will have troubles”. Those troubles are there for us to grow and for us to know (that we are never alone in whatever we are going through). Blessings do come as teardrops, pain and hard times. I’m not sure about you, but I’d rather build character through struggles, than remain self-centred in comfort.

Have an awesome day!