The Most Unpopular Secret of Personal Power
HELEN KELLER SAID, “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.”
So you hate the hard times you’ve passed through? Maybe you need to think again.
Easy times never stretch us, never enlarge our strengths, never give us a new, expanded grasp of our capabilities.
Easy times are comfortable, but that’s all you can say about them.
Hard times, on the other hand, are the things that, years later, we tell our grandchildren about. They’re what books and movies are based upon. Epics and legends and inspiring tales never feature comfortable people doing comfortable, ordinary things.
No Olympic athlete ever got there by insisting on her comfort; no business empires were founded by someone seeking an easy living; no great leader has ever coasted into prominence.
If you truly want to be more tomorrow than you are today, then you must learn to welcome the so-called “hard times” and difficulties, even feel a sense of excitement when you face them. After all, difficulties are a clear indicator that you’re about to enter a new growth phase.
The easiest way is always a downhill path, and as long as you’re on the easy road, you’ll always be headed downhill.
If you have always sought the easy way, avoided deliberately trying anything that would stretch you, then know this – you are ordinary… you’re nothing special.
Of course, you don’t have to remain ordinary. You could begin seeking out the uphill path, the higher way.
Do you hate struggle and effort?
You don’t have to. You can actually learn to love the stretching and the striving to do more because that’s what wins you strength. It’s what gains you power and self esteem and competence.
But most of all, it’s what builds strong character.
