I love discussions about life and the struggles of life because we cannot avoid either. As I often say, the key to life is facing it head on because the only other option is not very palatable. We get nowhere sticking our head in the sand. And we get nowhere also when we rail against life because it’s unfair.
Yes, life is unfair at times. It is.
But this isn’t the end of the story.
The end of the story is it’s beginning; always coming back to its beginning, life’s source. When we are caused to wonder and arrive at gratitude for the copious blessing that is in each our laps. There is always a deeper reason to be thankful for, if only we see the possibility.
In a recent discussion on the way to a Wellness event and on the way back afterward, I was prompted to ponder.
Those who have been through relational breakdown didn’t prosper through working through the pain and challenges—obviously this takes two people willing to be challenged and to grow through their challenges. This takes humility and courage, always does. But what are the options? Throw the baby out with the bath water? What a sad, sad reality it is when marriages end because one or both refuse to work on the issues that divide them or cause pain.
Marriages that survive prove
the point of post traumatic growth.
Couples battle through the tough times. They do this because they see it as the better of two or more poor options.
They keep going in faith, having sufficient hope that things will get better, being realistic enough to know that to battle through hell and keep going is infinitely better than upending life itself.
Yet nobody prospers in an abusive marriage—not the partner abused nor the perpetrator. If a person shows no signs of being willing to change, they can prove to be incapable of relationship. I know people like this. But most people are not essentially like this. Most people, deeper down, want the opportunity of growth, even if they must be forced to engage with it.
Marriage is just one example of this.
It’s very similar with workplaces.
Think of how unsatisfied you’ve been in a particular work setting. Has it ever been all the elements that are unsatisfactory, or that one non-negotiable is always transgressed? For those who have been in or are in long tenure employment (longer than five years), you’ve done the hardest years. To stay is easier in the longer haul than to leave over frivolous reasons. Build on what you have already invested...
Unless to leave would open up new options
that connect you to your deeper purpose...
then leave, don’t be held back, leave and grow.
EVIDENCE OF POST TRAUMATIC GROWTH
The best evidence that growth exists on the other side of trauma is the gratitude that comes, the gratitude that proves your life has blossomed through challenge. Because what is the only other option? Shrinkage? Ill mental health because of post traumatic stress disorder?
Sure, we cannot always control what triggers us via various stressors. We can only work through these, and find ways of coping in the gradual rebuilding process. But what is the other option in comparison to building? We either rebuild or we recede. Not much of a choice.
As Sir Winston Churchill said,
“If you’re going through hell... keep going.”
It’s the wisdom of the ages. Life offers no other palatable choice. Who in their right mind would not simply struggle on, one-day-at-a-time, to get through their hellish circumstance?
The stark reality in the final analysis is that these are the options:
Struggle through in faith and hope, and growth occurs,
whereby a grateful life is lived and won.
~OR~
Blame everything else and not take up
that cudgel of the challenge,
and bear a life of bitterness and resentment
which is a bane for you and
all those around you to bear.
~
In the cold light of day,
there isn’t much of a choice.
Gratitude or bitterness?
The fact of the matter is nobody prospers out of a life that refuses to work. We must all work to prosper in this life. The wisdom is in the work. And the work is in accepting our contribution to life, from one small thing to take responsibility for, to the next, to the next, and so on.
Those who accept their personal individual workload tend to get through their traumas. Sure, in many cases we still wear the scars of such a process, but those scars are beautiful in that they are the basis of true and rare humility that only comes when put our nose to the grindstone.
Gratitude or bitterness?
Which way are you going?
Is the way to gratitude tough? It sure is!
But is the way to bitterness any less tough?
Man, that is the toughest, nonsensical life.
Those who work through the challenges of life inevitably arrive at a destination of gratitude, whereas those who hate what life and people and the circumstances of life have “done” to them arrive at a bitter, untenable destination. There is often a bitter grief that is common to both routes.
Endure the bitter grief,
work it through,
keep going through your hell,
for you WILL grow.
There are always things to be grateful for.
Life opens up in its abundance in gratitude.
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