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How To Thrive In Adversity
“Excellence withers without an adversary.” — Seneca, Letters from a Stoic
Don’t you miss the struggle?
That’s how a Reddit post on the subreddit “AskMenOver30” began. I’m 29, so it naturally lured me in to read. The man who asked the question was 39 or 40. He wanted to know if other ‘successful’ men around his age missed the ‘pull yourself up your own bootstraps’ epoch of their lives. He had already ‘made it’ and it seemed as if he was a bit bored. Missing the struggle.
Interesting? I know.
It makes you think about your own struggles but in a different light. Can you imagine yourself missing your struggles?
You’ll only be able to miss your struggles if you have the right mentality tough. Your struggles can act bought as fuel for your fire or as your fire extinguishers. It depends on your mentality.
The mentality that will extinguish your fire is the victim mentality. Life sometimes is fucked up, there’s no denying it. People get shot for no reason and crimes happen to good people. Nevertheless, if you’re struggling with anything, the victim mentality will give you no aid. It will only harm you. It will keep you stuck. It will tell you to wait, and wait, and wait until someone comes. But most of the time, if not always, no one does.
