FIND YOUR STRENGHT ALONG THE WAY !

“Vires acquirit eundo” – WE GATHER STRENGHT AS WE GO !

 

It is the way you react to the small things in life and the way you deal with them which directly refelcts how you will one day deal with the bigger things in your life. When taking action toward doing the small things and taking pride in them, vanity falls away. 

Friedrich Nietzsche had a very intriguing enthusiasm toward a concept which he called “amor fati”.  In Latin this phrase means “a love of one’s fate”.  This basically means that you be resolute, enthusiastic and even accepting toward everything that happens in your life.  Surely it is not possible to wake up one day and suddenly deal with all forms of adversity as if it was nothing.  As a human being we will always have a certain collection of emotions and in some instances, we will still be at the mercy of these emotions.  One cannot simply see certain forms of trauma as something that will just pass.  But maybe if we find the strength to find a healthy way to live with these forms of pain, one might be surprised by the growth it still causes.  There is a saying in Latin: “Vires acquirit eundo” which means “we gather strength as we go”.  Maybe then patience is the virtue we need to add to the lessons we acquire from our adversity. 

The list of people who only became the Iron Lady or Iron man they were meant to be while they were much older tells of this truth.  Some of these people include Margaret Thatcher, Susan Boyle, Samuel L. Jackson and Henry Ford.  Being able to control the way we react toward adversity will just like any other action require us to build our muscle memory in this regards.  Muscle memory requires repetition.

We try so hard to control our emotions or feelings when in actual fact, what we should be controlling is the symptoms thereof.  What is the symptoms of your feelings of anger, sadness, disgust or disappointment?  Is this not where the actions you take after feeling such emotions, derive from?  If we cannot treat these symptoms it very often causes us to take the wrong action in order to silence the overwhelming effect of some of these emotions.

The thoughts we think after feeling certain emotions are also sometimes consciously malevolent.  These kind of thoughts only amplify our suffering.  The wrong thoughts causes us to ask the wrong questions.  The cycle gets more messed up when we answer these wrong questions with the wrong answers. We then use these answers to try and seek a solution to our problems.  The problem however remains that these answers we give is not merely or at all related to the solution we are seeking.  It is devastating to experience intense forms of trauma.  I will even go as far as to say that the emotional turmoil experienced during such events has too much variety to be crammed into a bunch of universal emotional fingerprints.  No-one has the right to decide how you feel after such instances.  But no-one can understand your internal turmoil better than you.  Choose to deal with these feelings effectively, with expectation and the courage to come out better and stronger.

Throughout the journey of overcoming certain obstacles we are also afforded the opportunity to create meaning aligned with concrete and moral personal values.  These personal beliefs and values cannot be generated by drafting a list and trying to dedicate your life to it.  It needs to be understood and felt in context, its value needs to be appreciated.  You have to choose to live the life you wish to live.  This is all part of meaning and meaning is what makes the suffering worthwhile. It is during the moments in which we are brave enough to acknowledge our flaws and shortcomings where our biggest strengths can be discovered.

This path of healing aimed at peeling away the deepest layers of who you are and facing the parts of you which you do not wish to face is never easy. That is also why this path is seldom treat upon.  Most things in life works this way.  Choose to learn from your adversity. Gather your strength as you go and stop wasting time trying to figure everything out in advance.