Excerpts
”When written in Chinese the word "crisis" is composed of two characters - one represents danger and the other represents opportunity.”
We face adversity every day. We spend most of our lives trying to bounce back from it. I’m not talking about gremlinlike, daily irritations such as traffic jams, computer glitches, and so on. We can usually shrug those off pretty well. I’m referring to tragic, life-changing adversity like cancer, divorce, and getting fired.
Such major adversity can drive any of us to contemplate the unthinkable: committing suicide quickly with a gun, a razor blade or an overdose of pills, or killing ourselves more slowly, but just as effectively, by drowning our pain in booze or obliterating it, along with our minds, with mood-altering, addictive drugs.
Major adversity more often than not is the culprit that brings about the so-called deaths by natural causes of heart attack and stroke. And then there are the accidental deaths stemming from automobile accidents, plane crashes, and the various other tragedies attributed to human error or unknown mechanical failures. Nor can we rule out personal adversity and its role in distracting us and affecting our judgment at critical moments, from the pilot landing an airplane, to the mechanic servicing brakes, to the stressed-out mom or dad behind the wheel of the family car running a red light or not seeing a stop sign.
In all these dismal scenarios adversity breaks down our bodies and taxes our spirits with overwhelming despair. It is the Pandora’s Box that floods us with misery. But there can be another scenario, if we learn how to tame adversity and make it serve us.
Believe me, I know, because I’ve had my share of major adversity, and from an early age.
I was born the son of an alcoholic and grandson of an alcoholic. I grew up and became an alcoholic, too.
I can only guess that my father abused alcohol to escape from huge self-induced stress due to his Type-A personality and his work as an industrialist. I often saw my father have beer at breakfast, drink whiskey at noon, and sleep until dinner. And here is the hardest part for me to tell you: I welcomed his drunkenness. Why? When he was sober, my father was cold and aloof. The only time my father ever told me “I love you” was when he was drunk.
I began sneaking drinks when I was twelve. My father was fun, affectionate, and warm when he was drunk. I wanted to be those things, too. At one point in my life as a drunkard, I could get from my bedroom to the basement, remove the hinge pins from the locked liquor cabinet, make a very dry twenty-ounce martini, replace the door, fly up the stairs, pausing at the kitchen fridge to throw ice in my oversized glass, and be back in my bedroom in less than ninety seconds. In this way I could drink to my heart’s content while the household slept.
Later in this book I will tell more about how my drinking almost destroyed me. For now, I’ll just make the point that my experience with adversity has not been limited to alcoholism. Far from it.
My approach to the question of why adversity exists is entirely pragmatic. This is a self-help book…It’s my contention that just like that grain of sand is used by the oyster, we can use adversity as a catalyst for creating something good – if we know how. To that end, I’ve devised a list of rules one can use to help put adversity to work:
As I expand on these rules in the pages to follow, I hope to inform and inspire you to see what’s possible when you move through adversity to a greater understanding of life and its goodness.
Facing adversity is never easy. I’ll do my best not to minimize the sheer terror and difficulty associated with suffering as I offer ways to use adversity to better ourselves and the world we share. I invite you to share my experiences, thoughts, hopes and lessons, so you can move closer to the mystery, wonder and power of life, by transforming your adversity into a force for positive change.
One
We’re Not Meant to be Happy...
We’re Meant to Grow
We’re Not Meant to be Happy...
We’re Meant to Grow
”When written in Chinese the word "crisis" is composed of two characters - one represents danger and the other represents opportunity.”
- John F. Kennedy
We face adversity every day. We spend most of our lives trying to bounce back from it. I’m not talking about gremlinlike, daily irritations such as traffic jams, computer glitches, and so on. We can usually shrug those off pretty well. I’m referring to tragic, life-changing adversity like cancer, divorce, and getting fired.
Such major adversity can drive any of us to contemplate the unthinkable: committing suicide quickly with a gun, a razor blade or an overdose of pills, or killing ourselves more slowly, but just as effectively, by drowning our pain in booze or obliterating it, along with our minds, with mood-altering, addictive drugs.
Major adversity more often than not is the culprit that brings about the so-called deaths by natural causes of heart attack and stroke. And then there are the accidental deaths stemming from automobile accidents, plane crashes, and the various other tragedies attributed to human error or unknown mechanical failures. Nor can we rule out personal adversity and its role in distracting us and affecting our judgment at critical moments, from the pilot landing an airplane, to the mechanic servicing brakes, to the stressed-out mom or dad behind the wheel of the family car running a red light or not seeing a stop sign.
In all these dismal scenarios adversity breaks down our bodies and taxes our spirits with overwhelming despair. It is the Pandora’s Box that floods us with misery. But there can be another scenario, if we learn how to tame adversity and make it serve us.
Believe me, I know, because I’ve had my share of major adversity, and from an early age.
I was born the son of an alcoholic and grandson of an alcoholic. I grew up and became an alcoholic, too.
I can only guess that my father abused alcohol to escape from huge self-induced stress due to his Type-A personality and his work as an industrialist. I often saw my father have beer at breakfast, drink whiskey at noon, and sleep until dinner. And here is the hardest part for me to tell you: I welcomed his drunkenness. Why? When he was sober, my father was cold and aloof. The only time my father ever told me “I love you” was when he was drunk.
I began sneaking drinks when I was twelve. My father was fun, affectionate, and warm when he was drunk. I wanted to be those things, too. At one point in my life as a drunkard, I could get from my bedroom to the basement, remove the hinge pins from the locked liquor cabinet, make a very dry twenty-ounce martini, replace the door, fly up the stairs, pausing at the kitchen fridge to throw ice in my oversized glass, and be back in my bedroom in less than ninety seconds. In this way I could drink to my heart’s content while the household slept.
Later in this book I will tell more about how my drinking almost destroyed me. For now, I’ll just make the point that my experience with adversity has not been limited to alcoholism. Far from it.
My approach to the question of why adversity exists is entirely pragmatic. This is a self-help book…It’s my contention that just like that grain of sand is used by the oyster, we can use adversity as a catalyst for creating something good – if we know how. To that end, I’ve devised a list of rules one can use to help put adversity to work:
| The Rules for Mastering Adversity | |
| I. | We’re not meant to be happy... we’re meant to grow. |
| II. | Positive thinking is imperative. |
| III. | You are not at the center of the universe. |
| IV. | Instead of “Why me?... Why not me? |
| V. | It is luckier to earn than to receive. |
| VI. | Be ‘self-ish’ and put yourself first, by putting yourself last. |
| VII. | Never think “I have to do it. Instead think “I have it to do.” |
| VIII. | I suffer passes... I suffered never passes... A blade remains tempered long after the fire that scorched it has faded away. |
| IX. | Cultivate the seven ‘self-ish’ Virtues of modesty, gratitude, courtesy, self-control, compassion, perseverance, and indomitable spirit to conquer your adversity. |
| X. | Adversity creates walls... When you tear down those walls you create spectacular vistas of self-potential. |
| XI. | Leverage sweat equity built up by surviving previous trouble to help master current adversity. |
| XII. | Adversity always grants a chance to creatively resolve the problem. |
| XIII. | Running away never helps. |
| XIV. | Overcoming adversity requires the right attitude... meditation.... communication... and sharing. |
| XV. | Have the right idea about money. Success isn’t just possessions and power. |
| XVI. | Practice responsibility, loyalty, consideration -- the magic formula that is the secret to life. |
| XVII. | Always get the facts... real facts, not the imagined ones. |
| XVIII. | Treat time as your most valuable resource. |
| XIX. | Get perspective through acts of charity to others. |
| XX. | Adversity provides the only real opportunity to make an incredible difference in your life and the world. |
| XXI. | Come to see problem solving as one of the great joys of life. |
| XXII. | There is always a great idea lurking in adversity... Will you find it? |
As I expand on these rules in the pages to follow, I hope to inform and inspire you to see what’s possible when you move through adversity to a greater understanding of life and its goodness.
Facing adversity is never easy. I’ll do my best not to minimize the sheer terror and difficulty associated with suffering as I offer ways to use adversity to better ourselves and the world we share. I invite you to share my experiences, thoughts, hopes and lessons, so you can move closer to the mystery, wonder and power of life, by transforming your adversity into a force for positive change.