Hardship Can Provide New Perspective

What is your reaction to adversity?

Here is a shift in mindset worth considering. We often view progression as moving from one rung to another, up to the top, on a straight and linear path to whatever you are in pursuit of.  But then circumstances get in the way and you find yourself with an opportunity, the chance to shift to a new perspective that allows for something positive right where you are. The truth is that we often find that one thing leads to the next in an organic progression, or series of iterations all their own. You then find that in the accumulation of experiences, you discover new things about yourself, new abilities, new value to contribute to the world that you have come to know and that also has come to know you. Unlike vertical experiences, these are horizontal in nature. The combined value of multiple horizontal experiences can make you better in a way that a vertical experiences may not.

As an example, Teddy Roosevelt lost both his mother and is wife on the same day at the age of 25. He spent hours and days riding his horse in the Badlands to clear his head. Before his large personal loss he was on a progressive and climbing trajectory in state politics. When he returned from the Badlands he went on to lead the U.S. Civil Service and then moved on to being the New York City police commissioner to then join the army. Eventually, he went on to become a New York governor and then vice president of the United States. The point being, don’t underestimate the value of those horizontal experiences that seem in conflict with the typically vertical paths we tend to plan.