Commentary

Accept challenges

By GERMAINE SMITH, Staff Reporter

OLDER FOLKS USED to say that anything that you are not good at, do it again and again. The essence of their argument was that the way to overcome your challenges was to tackle them head on, and if that doesn't break you, then it will make you a better person.

Do challenges really make us better though? When a woman living on minimum wage has to raise four children in a one bedroom hut, does that make her a better person?

A man with one hand, one eye, and one leg - will he be a better man inside than the average Joe on the street because of his challenges?

Not necessarily, but I believe that if they want to rise from these challenges they will become stronger persons than normal. Based on the theory, their difficulties will force them to be more disciplined and focused in their approach to life than the 'normal' man.

We all try to avoid certain challenges in life, yet, challenges often make us stronger persons in the long run. Look at our brains and muscles for example. Our muscles work on the principle that the more you use them, the healthier they get.

When you use weights to build them, what you are doing is actually challenging them with the weights. Over time, they develop under the stress to assist in lifting these weights, and hence a healthier muscle.

The brain works on the same principle. When we use certain sections of our brains, it makes us healthier in the long run. Our mental capacity increases and some argue that this even makes us live longer.

Why then do we dread difficulty? Shouldn't we all be giving up our 'bought' and 'earned' luxuries so that we can learn the virtues of long suffering and patience?

My guess is that we were put here to challenge ourselves and try to make our planet a better one, but I figure over time things got complicated.

Instead of seeking better for the entire planet, some groups wanted to be more comfortable than others. Hence wars started, slavery came into existence, and all the ills we see today gradually crept up upon us.

I can only speak for myself, but I think we all need to choose something we see as a challenge for us. No matter how small, but for the sake of self-improvement, I feel we should risk doing something out of our regular scope of things just to see how much better as a person we can become.