Hard and Fast Rule

Life is hard.  Admit it. Stress is a necessary part of life, because the physical, mental, and emotional, responses it evokes, strengthen all  human systems.  Successfully dealing with stress causes the person  to emerge  more resilient to illnesses and diseases.  Too little stress  isn’t enough to elicit these reactions, and too much overwhelms the organism.  Awareness of stress levels, and balancing them,  is a  key to health.

So You’re a Tough Guy, or Gal

People tout the myth of  supremely confident people, impervious to fear, struggle, and difficult situations.  When someone mentions their own problems, or those of others, people deride them.  Complainers make people uncomfortable for a few reasons. If the listener cares, they might become frustrated,  since mostly they are not able to resolve another person’s problem for them.  Often people just have no empathy and couldn’t care less, so the person just annoys them.  Many people are not able, or just not willing to try to imagine other people’s concerns and plights.  Also, many people just are hypocrites. They consider themselves as behaving differently in the same situations, even if they never had anything similar in their own life.  While it seems obvious, these sanctimonious posers deny that people are inherently different. What is difficult for one person, might be easy for another.  Confluences of events sometimes exacerbate already difficult conditions.  So stop with the “snowflake” and “frail” insults:; they just prove ignorance and lack of wisdom. It is human nature to care first and foremost about one’s own concerns, but empathy is respecting the human condition.

Respect the Struggle

The facts are different from the common theories of self-discipline.  Knowing things are difficult just prepares you for reality.  The most bravery is not fearlessly taking actions.  Bravery is taking actions when you are afraid. The Stoics are the immature ones. Healthy people admit life is hard, and then they go ahead and live it anyway.  Individuals and groups are not inherently weak for espousing this.  If everyone realized this life fact, the resultant empathy, and even sympathy, might just resolve the national discord.

Illustration:  Conquering Adversity-Illustration

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