Those who encounter adversity can push past it only with change. This does not occur exclusively to some; to every distinct identity there are inverses capable of barring them, and what, if not distinct, is humanity?
Adversity is as much a part of existence as the pursuits against which it stands. Human beings are ever growing, ever accruing sense with which to ascertain what fits them best. As a result of this, people, one and all, are unique; adversity, consequently, is a given in the lives of all.
It is a roadblock, if you will – one that is only considered as such for its own unique nature, existing in a manner such that it is posed directly against the ideas that form one’s individuality. This obstruction can be rebuffed only by altering the things of which one makes use – changing the means with which the now-impeded goal is pursued.
One’s means are as keys to the locked doors that present themselves. In this event, it’s not so simple an action of changing tack by selecting a new key, for it is one in which no key suffices for the task.
One must, as though starting anew, melt to liquid their original keys, and from them fashion more apt tools. This, more than anything, is the adversity – not the application of one’s skills, nor the realization of the fact that they’re, in the face of the trials given, lacking. So taxing is the sheer difficulty in dissolving one’s means – in dissolving, by extension, one’s uniqueness – that it bears a name wholly different from one’s typical trial or tribulation, set aside as adversity.
This thesis statement would, if not for recent events, be without relevance to me. I, of course, have faced adversity, yet never before in such a manner as I described above – I’d known only challenges. The distinction between challenge and adversity lies in the semantics; the one acts as a bar to all that encounter it, whilst the other is of a more selective sort, and all the more difficult for it.
My adversity, incidentally, was in the writing of this very thesis statement, and the blog post of which it is part. This was an adversity in the stead of a mere challenge for the nature of the tools that were proven to no longer suffice. These tools were, as is to be expected when speaking of writing, my words, and the manner in which I utilized them. Within human beings are sentiments – shaped by each of these is one’s identity. Of said sentiments, some are common to all, serving as the piece betokening one’s humanity.
Others differ between beings, and in these exist uniqueness – the inexorable result of which is adversity. Such sentiments are, in all their distinguishment, begotten of distinct views; these can be in turn attributed to the influences of proximity, the limiter of what can and can’t alter one’s identity. Proximity sets a range of sorts, and within this range of mine were books – thus making words all the more important in my life, all in a manner unique to the things by which I was influenced, and their complements with one another.
Hence the adversity – as stated in my thesis statement – to be found in seeing a need to change my ‘tools’, and make alterations to that which differentiates me. Such alteration, however, is necessary if one is to overcome adversity, for only then will it be less of a personal impediment, and instead a mere hurdle.
All that stands solidly before one is overcome by destabilizing its solid points, and fashioning one’s own openings through the substantial wall presented by adversity. From my thesis statement, and my experiences both, I can draw one extrapolation: the greater the extent of the change one creates, the simpler it is to overcome adversity. The result is an adversity less specific to one’s identity; an adversity more easily conquered.
Does this take from one’s identity its uniqueness?
No.
Keys are reforged to fit locks, yet with every reforging appear grooves that mark the fact. The overcoming of adversity is but one experience; one that shall then form unique sentiments, birthing in turn the adversities to come. Resiliency is built in this very manner, for with its presence – the knowledge that adversity is indicative not of a loss of distinction, but the accruement thereof – one knows adversity to be something not wholly detrimental, and can more readily accept the change it entails.