Few of us expect the unexpected.
While we sometimes feel exasperated, at the predictability that our lives can fall into, we take for granted that we are able to anticipate much of what occurs, on any given day.
We get comfortable. Life drifts onward.
We lose sight of how much of our lives are spent asleep, unaware and unresponsive.
Until, something happens that we are ill-equipped and unprepared to handle.
Life has such lessons for each of us.
When circumstance requires growth, in order for us to respond sufficiently, we are bewildered and caught off guard. We rarely, if ever, choose the context, the players or the setting. There are no warnings or syllabi, no Pinterest checklists to help us plan, preemptively.
These impromptu life lessons, sudden and intense, and quite often painful, serve to awaken us to survival.
What is survival, anyway?
Survival is an innate desire to exist.
To survive is to breathe life into our lungs, feel warmth when the sun is shining its brightest and experience the liberty to dance, or cry, in the rain.
The desire to survive, forgotten in the quiet hum of predictability, when ignited, brings us back to being.
Bittersweet, isn’t it?
The beauty in adversity, is that it provides a reintroduction to self.
In the riptide of calamity, we are violently brought back to the present, and become glaringly aware of realities we would rather avoid or forget.
It is in the midst of adversity, when we realize that we lost sight of who we were, or of who we have allowed ourselves to become, in the haze of monotony.
There is no need to remember, if we are just drifting by.
I know who I am when things are comfortable - to suggest otherwise assumes that being comfortable is synonymous to being checked out, that’s not entirely fair.
You are who you become when things get less comfortable.
When life’s circumstances bewilder and confuse you, hurt you and abuse you, strip you of everything you thought you were, or held close to you - you get a real glimpse of yourself.
We learn to what extent we value our existence, when we are put in a position to fight for it.
There are only two outcomes. We either sink or swim.
Know that life’s lessons are signals that oblige us to acknowledge that there is more, that awaits us, than what is comfortably within our reach.
No matter the journey, or the undertaking - commit. Rise to the occasion.
Survive.
The challenging times will come and they will go.
Let them serve as a reminder of how powerful you are, when you make the conscious choice to fight for your right to breathe life into your lungs, feel warmth when the sun is shining its brightest and experience the liberty to dance, or cry, in the rain.
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