How Life Adversities Can Make Us Strong

Automobile accidents, kidnapping, fire, collapsed building, flood, cancer, boat mishaps,  plane crashes, vicious attacks at home or on the street, rape, death of a loved one. Nobody requests for any of it. But surprisingly many people discover that enduring such distressing torment eventually changes them for good. Though they wish it hadn’t happened, the experience strengthened their resilience along with a new perspective of life. 

The many values in human life such as happiness, compassion, astuteness, selflessness, understanding, inspiration, can now and again be fostered only through trials of adversity.  This is because every so often only extreme conditions can push us to accept painful process of change. It isn’t enough to live a peaceful worthy life devoid of adversities. It’s important to develop and mature, while going through these personal qualities pain deeply. For instance, the widows and widowers who finally adapted best to loss were those who accepted the pain and grief of the circumstances without being overawed by it. It’s a growth-related attitude which allows you to take into consideration life's difficulties, while keeping in mind a more positive bigger picture.

In the face of the most terrifying ordeal, most times people recover and excel in the long run. Because as it turns out, some of the people who have gone through the worst experiences,  been arm-twisted to live with tragedies they never expected, and  thereafter reevaluated the  importance of their existence, can have a lot to divulge about that deep  and powerfully rewarding journey that is called a ‘worthy life’.

The stories of Chioma and Bisi are examples of two women, out of several people out there, who are determined to face and ride through the different storms and hurdles that come every day as they live through their decisions; the spirit to face up to fresh challenges each new dawn, to take them as they come, and throw up solutions that make such adversities bearable.

Chioma’s Story

Take the story of Chioma, a young woman, who refused to be bugged down by daily problems that come with amputation. Read her unedited story:

Have you ever considered typing with one hand?  I do not mean doing it for the fun of it or by choice but as the only alternative. Well, that is exactly what I am doing right now. Am I not lucky? Believe it or not, I am because there are many out there left with no choice at all. What about cooking, bathing, driving, writing, cleaning etc with same means mentioned above? Do not ever dream of it although sometimes it could be fun. Just for your information, I do more than these with just my right hand. I am so lucky I am a right handed lady.

Before the 11 December 2007, life to me meant nothing more than catching fun but today, I realise that we are living just but a borrowed life we have no control over. As a sales representative, my job entails a lot of travelling which I do on a weekly basis. So was the situation on the 11 December 2007, when I left Aba for Calabar. Hardly had I driven past Ikot Ekpene when it happened. I heard a thud- like sound from the back side of my car, next thing I knew the steering became uncontrollable. I navigated right to clear from the road since I was on the high way but lo and behold, it was the back tyre. Before I knew it, I was battling with getting out from the car which had already entered a gully.  There is this habit of traveling alone, which I had done on countless occasions but as God will have it on this fateful day, I had company and that actually saved my life, thanks to Amara.

Amara is a friend and former neighbour whom I had travelled with on that fateful day. I remembered Amara helping me out from the car while I staggered to sit at a nearby bush track. I felt blood dripped from my forehead to my shirt but made nothing out of it. While I sat by the bush path, I felt so weak and needed to lie down. Utter horror, I noticed that my left hand had been cut from the wrist, that is, my palm was gone with the fingers. What a gory sight to see - blood gushing from the dangling tissue-like stuffs which formed part of the remains of my left hand. With Amara’s assistance, people gathered and not too long, help came from someone whom till date, I do not know. The young man carried me, as well as Amara, to Ikot Ekpene General Hospital which happens to be the nearest hospital. The doctors there only succeeded in stitching my forehead and advised I should be rushed to University of Calabar Teaching Hospital without delay. To cut a long story short, I lost a lot of blood while on transit to Calabar on the same day. Three days later, my hand was amputated and I have come to accept my fate as an amputee. I have not allowed the new situation I found myself to weigh me down. If not for God’s mercy, I would have been dead but since I am alive, I have vowed to make the best out of the situation.

I want to learn that in life, it is only you that can limit yourself. Make the best use of your situation and always put a smile on your face. Your inward expression forms your appearance and the better you put yourself in the right perspective, the better your life will be. By being yourself and managing your situation properly, you see that people are encouraged and you are better appreciated.

To all amputees out there, do not feel limited in any way. While there is hope of using prosthetics when the need arise, be yourself and do not feel discouraged. Your inner strength comes from your reasoning and not your body parts. Avoid depression, nothing kills faster than it. I am a living testimony that is why I take it upon myself to reach out to as many as will have access to this piece. I pray God to give us the grace to perform better.

Bisi’s story

For Bisi, a terrible experience gave her one valuable positive outlook: assurance about what is right and wrong and about her priorities in life. Though she had lost her father, her husband, one year apart, it was the death of her very close brother that dealt the most devastating blow. It happened ten years ago but still hurts so much. More because it was sudden, unexpected, and he didn’t live long enough to see his children grow.  Now, Bisi sees life in a very different perspective than before. She knows the difference between what’s important and what’s not. She appreciates her family more, while material possessions have taken a back seat, and a lot of things that used to be important are less so. There is simplicity about her dressing, relationships, and business deals. Nothing is a do or die anymore. She does what she can within her stress limit. If it is too much and cranking her up, she lets go. The reality is that material wealth is all vanity, she’s on a temporary mission in this place called ‘earth’, and once  accomplished she zooms off. It is the legacy left that becomes indestructible. For her the most important lesson of life is to be remembered for something positive at the end of it all.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger

After diversities, people often say that their lives are transformed involuntarily and that their old values or habits evaporate in an instant. People who have experienced a traumatic incident said that it ultimately had positive long-term effects upon their lives. This is because the negative events have the ability to shake up the normalcy in their lives, which opens the door for change. You could choose to become depressed, desperately rely on pick- me -ups, or you could become a much better person. 

However, making the effort to come fully to terms with the new reality takes a definite effort.  To be willing and able to get on with this process is what separates those who grow through adversity and those who are destroyed by it. Remarkably, people who make the most of adversity are not the strongest or the most practical. Rather they are ordinary. What makes them different is that they’re able to integrate the event into their life story. There’s an eagerness to accept the painful process to review who they are while abandoning an old view that has become obsolete. At the end, they may find themselves freed in ways they never imagined. Survivors of adversities frequently admit their better sense of tolerance and forgiveness of others can bring peace to earlier distressed relationships. Material things quickly take the back seat after a crisis, while family and friends become supreme, enabling them to reappraise life alongside the new priorities.

People who have grown from adversity often feel much less fear, despite the frightening things they have been through. They are surprised by their own strength; confident that they can handle whatever else life throws at them. Like Chioma and Bisi, many also feel transformed by a sense of deep compassion for and connection to others that is intensely rewarding on its own. People don’t say that what they went through was wonderful. They didn’t even plan to grow from it. They were just trying to take one day at a time. But looking back they gained more than expected. And based on the trauma they went through, they are now aware how tough life can be and as such  shouldn’t be taken for granted. 

The capacity to simultaneously embrace both loss and growth is an ordinary part of life, a complex, heartbreaking emotional state that is perhaps the greatest reward of maturity. Even positive memories of the past are nostalgic. There is an incredible richness and warmth about those memories, but also sadness, knowing that they are tied to a particular moment in your life and that you'll never have those experiences again. They have now become memories.  

Ultimately, that emotional reward can compensate for the pain and difficulty of adversity. This perspective doesn’t remove what happened, but it puts it all in a different viewpoint: that it’s possible to live an extraordinarily rewarding life even within the limitations and battles we face. In some form or other, we all must go through this realisation. We are not going to be the person we thought we were, but here is who we are going to be instead, and that turns out to be a pretty worthy life.

Photo Credit: Creative Commons; Chioma’s Story: Credit Chioma