Adversity Reveals

The Daily Stoic for June 26th. “Adversity Reveals”.

“How does it help, my husband, to make misfortune heavier by complaining about it? This is more fit for a king—to seize your adversities head on. The more precarious his situation, the more imminent his fall from power, the more firmly he should be resolved to stand and fight. It isn’t manly to retreat from fortune.”
—SENECA, OEDIPUS, 80

People nowadays have hundreds or even thousands of friends on Facebook. But those are not real friends, neither the ones you hang out with just to go partying. You know the type, those who are there every Saturday night but seem to be absent when you have a serious problem and need a helping hand.

A real friend reveals when you are in the face of adversity, or when you mess up with them or fail them. Their reactions to those situations let you distinguish real friends from “party pals”.

Adversity Reveals

Similarly, you get to know the real character of someone when this person faces a real problem. We are completely different persons when life smiles upon us than through our darkest hours.

Personally, the best people I’ve ever met are the ones who have gone through really hard times and have managed to overcome them.

I sometimes wonder how would I react under extreme situations. I.E: losing everything, or if something tragic happened to my beloved ones. I guess you never know until you get into that situation. As far as I know, my typical reaction, when faced with such moments or periods of time, has been working. Working a lot. Working my ass off the situation.

So I guess that would be my reaction, but of course, you never know until you are there. Let’s hope it won’t be anytime soon but, if that’s what the future holds, I hope I will be able to support it in the most stoic way.

Conclusion

Today’s Daily Stoic, “Adversity Reveals”, describes how only through adversity we get to know people well, and launches a question: how would you react when things go really wrong?