Summary

The article discusses how to overcome adversity by having faith in oneself, not quitting, and understanding that progress will be messy.

Abstract

The article begins with a personal anecdote about the author's struggle with Temporomandibular Joint Disorder during their first year of college. The author emphasizes the importance of having faith in oneself and finding meaning in life, citing Viktor Frankl's experience in the Holocaust as an example. The author also stresses the importance of not quitting and breaking down goals into smaller, more manageable chunks. The article concludes by acknowledging that progress will be messy and that trying is better than wishing to try.

Opinions

The author believes that having faith in oneself is a simple and free solution to overcoming adversity.
The author suggests that finding meaning in life is crucial to moving forward.
The author emphasizes the importance of not quitting and breaking down goals into smaller, more manageable chunks.
The author acknowledges that progress will be messy and that trying is better than wishing to try.

How to Overcome Times of Adversity

Nobody will come to save you

I was starting my first year of college, and I was suffering from Temporomandibular Joint Disorder, which lead to feeling significant pain more or less continuously and brought several dysfunctions. I could barely think, concentrate, and I had no clue how I will survive in college, but I did.

Have faith in yourself

When I think about what makes people go forward, it is not something complicated and sophisticated that is sold in books in courses, but something really simple.

Have faith in yourself that you could bring to reality the future you imagine. It is completely free, can be done by anyone. People want magical solutions, this is one of them.

Having faith brings meaning into your life because you know what you are fighting for. Viktor Frankl a Holocaust survivor, had the firm belief that one of the fundamental reasons people managed to survive that terrible experience, was the life meaning that somehow they found for themselves.

“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked.”

-Viktor Frankl, ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’

Back in college, I had one day when I finally wanted to quit. It was a rainy day, and I took the bus to get to one of my classes. On the bus someone, accidentally hit me in the face while trying to walk beside me. Afterward, my jaw raged with pain and I was overwhelmed. It wasn’t the pain that surprised me but how fragile I become. I wanted to go home, call my parents and tell them that I am going to drop out, it was too much for me, trying to navigate life with this horrendous weak body that I had.

When I got home and I calmed down, I realized that it wasn’t my body that become weak, but my mind. My sickness slowly degraded my spirit and my will and I was on the verge of breaking down. I sat on my bed and thought about dropping out, but I had no other alternatives in mind, and simply living with no purpose whatsoever sounded just bad.

I decided to continue moving forward, to believe that one day I am going to get better, and I will finish my education, it was the only path forward that I had.

Don’t quit

This point comes in direct support of the other. If you quit completely, your dreams will vanish, your faith will dissipate and your meaning will simply be extinguished.

Any other advice is useless if you choose to give up. As long as you keep moving forward and try again another thing, you will have a chance in achieving that one thing that you wish for.

I believe that the best way to trick yourself into continuing is slicing the time of persistence on your path, into digestible chunks of time.

What I mean by that is, try making a deal with yourself, to work 1 more month, if not possible 1 more week, hour or minute.

Resisting a period will give you confidence that you can do it again and you will be able to make another deal with yourself.

It will be messy

Trying to do anything is a complicated process and even if you have faith in yourself and you don’t quit, you will still have a complicated path ahead.

Some days things won’t work out, you will fail at pretty much everything you planned for, and that’s alright.

Progressing through life isn’t supposed to be perfect, it is an adventure that will be filled with terrible and beautiful things.

Nonetheless, trying is much better than wishing to try. Doing things even if you are bad at them, you will have something to improve upon.

You need an existential draft of yourself, that bit by bit will become the real thing with every step you take towards your dreams.

In conclusion, having faith in yourself will make you stick to your plan in times of adversity. As long as you don’t quit you will try things, that will build the structure of your life which you will be able to improve with every attempt.

This was what helped me at my lowest, I managed to recover, finish my Bachelor's degree and now I am continuing to march forward, being deeply grateful that I decided to not give up.

Try sincerely believing in yourself for a while, and see what happens with your life.