Taming The Tempestuous Tides

Life can be analogized to a sea, with its high tides, low tides, storms and peaceful waves. Sometimes, seas also witness catastrophic events, tectonic plate movements resulting in earthquakes and tsunamis. Similarly, a person also faces hardships and sometimes has to live in adversities. In ancient times, the natural disasters were considered god's wrath, something inevitable. Likewise, these adversities too were thought to be misfortunes due to previous lives' sins, a result of bad Karma, something equally unavoidable and predestined.

Today, we know that destiny is what one does with one’s life and isn't decided at birth. Hence, whether there are storms in sea or turbulent times in life, the situation can be controlled by having the right attitude and employing right ways.

Hence, overcoming the adversities doesn’t have to be impossible. Difficult, may be, but not entirely impossible that once struck, you may never recover.

So, what you need is -

Acceptance:
Facing your demons is the first and foremost thing to do; for acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcome the consequences of any misfortune you face. When you embrace the reality, half of the battle is won there.

Resilience:

For a spring, it's its elasticity while for a person, it's his toughness, his strength, his endurance coupled with patience to face something and bounce back stronger. Endurance through pain is built through experience and these experiences are the lessons you learn to increase your ability to respond in future to tough times in a better way. This requires hope, that you'll get better. This requires faith, that there's light at the end of the tunnel. This certainly requires time. And, "Tough Times Never Last But Tough People Do!"

Driving Spirit:

This is what propels you upwards the tumultuous tides of hardships. This is innate; within you and is the fuel to your desires. It's your passion to do something. This is what ignites you to achieve an aim, actually, that's why you feel inclined towards a goal. And this is why you fight for your goal with all you got. Identify yours and you'll get tremendous energy and will to pursue your calling.

Now, what you don't need is -

Self-Pity :
Honestly, this is the worst way to treat oneself. It not only kills the self-esteem along with deteriorating the productivity, but also engages one in a vicious cycle of loathing and blaming situations and even persons. It simply makes it difficult to accept the situation and move forward. So one should always check if one starts feeling sorry for oneself and immediately engage in some efforts.

The wrong mindset :

It includes all the vices - pessimism, indiscipline, lethargy for any and everything, eventually leading to a mundane existence. Moreover, it also leads to a lack of vision, rather, a lack of want of having a vision. And this is something very scary. It's basically an inert existence. Believe me, this isn’t how any human wishes to live. Your thoughts inspire your actions. Hence, having the right mindset to deal with your problems is a very crucial factor in prevailing over them.

Hence, in adverse times, anyone can give up, it’s the easiest way out. And a big truth is that most people choose this easy option. But that’s just the surface luster. Because an even bigger truth is that your hardest times often lead you to your life’s greatest moments!

Joshua J. Marine said something very interesting - “Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.”

Hence, pick your option wisely.