Adversity Makes Strength 2

The Kansas City Business Journal had an article about how people in sales learn to live with, learn from, and sometimes ignore adversity. His point was that working through setbacks makes you resilient, prepared, and naturally optimistic.

I was discussing the article with a friend and told him that it reminded me of dating in High School. You humiliate yourself over and over again and get nowhere. It's not a great analogy, just a good joke line.

There was a citation for some study that said that younger soldiers have a harder time surviving conflict than older ones. I believe this was supposed to apply to Iraq, but I also remember hearing something about this said about WWII and even the Civil War. The theory here is that with a little experience under your belt, you learn that setbacks do not mean defeat and that demoralization isn't the best reaction to adversity.

People have often cited the string of failures of President Lincoln and General Grant as examples of people who eventually prevail through hardships by perseverance.

I think there is something to be said for this. Some of the rhetoric I hear by older adults when they try to explain why "these kids these days" can't hold a job or won't work hard or don't know how to succeed have a degree of merit in one important category. Anyone who grows up sheltered from criticism, not required to work hard for the things they acquire, and not exposed to hardship or deprivation is going to have a naturally easygoing view of the world. And while it is true some people are hugely successful with little effort and lots of luck, most people do have to work hard to achieve their goals. The younger you are, the less likely you are to have been challenged by any hard knocks. So, in general, younger people do have a higher probability of not being "battle tested".

So if you find someone saying all these things as a blanket condemnation and being somewhat derogatory of young people, just remember what are some of the other things that come with all this age and experience. Remember that age takes away many of the good and fun things of youth. Who doesn't look back on youth wistfully as a carefree time when you had little worries and it was easy to be enthusiastic and energetic. Many of the endeavors in life would not be undertaken if people had a clear understanding before starting out just how difficult and demoralizing they would be.

Much of schooling is designed to do just this. We talk about learning hard lessons in life, but difficult subject matters are something you have to struggle through to accomplish. The thing that most people that have worked hard have learned is that even with the setbacks and difficulties, there are the results. Only through struggles and strenuous efforts will you accomplish the things you want, getting the job, finishing the project, or cleaning up the mess you were handed. That glowing feeling of looking back at the mess you've put in order or the job you've accomplished makes all the sweat and toil worth it.

Adversity Makes Strength

Again with the Star Trek references!

People that are coddled their whole life would have a much more difficult time making something of themselves than people that are challenged and made to work through obstacles.

That may seem obvious, but really, we do not use this principle in helping people develop as well as we could. The old "teach a man to fish" proverb also holds true with education. You sometimes have to struggle through things in order to learn, adapt, enhance your abilities, or become better.

Star Trek Next Generation junkies remember well the continuing storyline of the Borg. The Borg were this advanced species, with a collective consciousness that assimilated races they encountered against their will. All individuality was stamped out and the race lost their freedom and what made them unique and special. While I could probably write several college essays on the parallels to various real life issues and the Borg, I'm concentrating today more on how the humans were introduced to them.

The future history of the humans in Star Trek was set to proceed so that the Borg would have invaded human space, caught them unaware, and probably wiped them out. Instead, a supernatural (maybe I should say very advanced) being called Q whisked the crew of the Enterprise out to Borg space and arranged for a premature meeting between the Borg and humanity. They barely escaped alive. However, they got back to Earth and warned the Federation (not just humanity) about the threat. Humanity was able to prepare and when the inevitable conflict arrived, they were able to hold off being assimilated.

You start off thinking that Q was a real jerk for putting the humans in harms way, but then you realize later that he interfered to help humanity prepare and survive. It sure didn't seem helpful at the time.

This is apparent in so many examples. If your parents are hard on you, and you end up succeeding and excelling, guess what? They did you a favor. Ask a football player if he likes two a day practices, but ask him if he likes the shape he's in afterwards. We don't coddle people through military basic training, we need tough and capable soldiers. And no one does your homework for you in college if you want to actually understand what's going on.

So the point here is that anything worth doing is worth struggling to do.

I listened to this scientific program about the bacterial content of the human body. Apparently, in sheer numbers, there are more bacteria than human cells in the human body (they didn't say how the balance works out in total mass, I assume the bacteria are mostly smaller than human cells). When you say "bacteria" to the average person, they think germs and they start asking their doctor for an antibiotic. The load of bacteria we carry around as humans is mostly beneficial to us. These "infections" do many useful functions as well as helping to fight off harmful bacterial infections. Pretty cool, huh? Yet on the face of it, we tend to see bacteria as harmful. For that matter, some harmful bacteria do us big favors too. Research is just out that purports that herpes infections probably keep us from catching the plague, among other things. The persistent low level response to the virus makes some other more deadly viruses easy prey to our immune system.

And so it is with crime and terrorism. For that matter, the threat of war, too. The total damage and loss of life and property from terrorism (yes, even the 9/11 attacks) is minimal compared to all of our human and property assets. But the response to the threat can help us better prepare for future threats. I think the point to emphasize is that chaos can occur naturally, but being put on alert by dissidents around the world about the potential for nuclear, biological, or good old fashioned explosive mayhem can help us prepare for disasters in a way to prevent them. What are criminals and terrorists other than an unwanted infection on society?