None of us are capable of looking at a person and assuming we understand what they go through. Severe or minimal, hardship is hardship. And believe it or not, it teaches us something and shapes us into the person we are meant to become.
The most common question people ask themselves is “why do I go through so much when others go through so little?” and truthfully — there is no answer to this. There is no way of us understanding why there is an imbalance in what people face, why people are poor while others are rich, why some people break hearts and others get heartbroken. However, what we fail to recognize is how much it builds our character when we go through and come out of these hardships.
One of the most challenging lessons I’ve had to accept is that we all have different capacities of what we are capable of dealing with. There are some that have to provide for themselves at a young age, others dealing with problems at home—some that don’t even have a home. And then there’s people who have to maintain a certain grade point to impress their parents. And while it’s easy to say one problem is more severe than the other, we fail to recognize that we go through different things depending on how our character is built to put up with these challenges. While I may have the capacity to handle large problems, my friend may not due to the environment she grew up in and the tolerance she’s built as a result. And that’s okay.
To her, having to move back home and keep up a certain GPA is her biggest challenge. To me, I’ve grown up without a mother and have faced some other hardships along the line. We have different capacities of what we can be put through without breaking, and that is why some people go through hell while other people go through rain. What we can take from this, however are the lessons we learned as a result.
Struggling is a good thing. The more you go through, the more you are capable of sympathizing with others. The more your heart grows as a result because you understand what it’s like to be on the other end of the pain. It humbles you and it makes your character stronger in the process, even in the most challenging of times.
If we never experience the bad, the good would never be as good as we think it is. We would become accustom to that lifestyle and build an expectation that would constantly put us in a neutral state. There is no hardship that has been incapable of teaching you something valuable. It sucks to leave your wallet on the bus but it’s the reason you check back every time you get up from now on. It’s frightening to be told you can’t do something or be considered a failure, but you’ve built a tolerance to the reality that sometimes people are not going to believe in you the way you believe in yourself. It’s better to learn these lessons now then to be in a position where they all hit you at once down the line.
It’s easy for us to look at others and to be bitter about the fact that they don’t face what we do. But they’re not growing, learning or changing as a result of these inexperience’s. To struggle means to be that much more grateful when you accomplish something despite your barriers. You work twice as hard but you feel twice as proud. And to be quite frank, it’s a blessing in disguise.
Stay humble. Struggle. Overcome it. Repeat.