The thing about life is that no one passes it without “great force or pressure”, however, the key to strength is the “capacity to withstand”.
According the dictionary, one of the definitions of strengths is “the capacity of an object or substance to withstand great force or pressure”.The thing about life is that no one passes it without “great force or pressure”, however, the key to strength is the “capacity to withstand”.
We have often heard that one does not receive a burden more difficult than s/he can handle. The reality of it is that everyone’s performance depends on how firmly they want to succeed. Being strong is not easy, but the rewards are tremendous.
It’s like when you upgrade your car and after a while your eye aims on something bigger, better or stronger. In the same way, once you have overcome a difficulty with strength, that becomes a new skill and you will just need to pull out the lessons you learned from the previous one if you ever get tested in the same way again.
However, being strong is a choice. It’s not enough to just go through lots of problems in your life to be strong. It is the work you put during the circumstances and the promises you make to yourself and how you hold yourself accountable to them.
With each burden, we go through a period of intense pain to a point of hopelessness. The stages of grief have to happen, slowly, deeply but surely.
Being strong does not mean not falling, not hurting or not crying. Strength is what you do after the downfall. Do you sit and look at the bleeding and cry about your misery or do you get up and keep going regardless of the scars created. Strength is so powerful and instrumental in having a positive life experience, to a point where you say “I know this might hurt me or heal me but I have faith in myself in that I am strong enough to overcome it if things go wrong”.
Do not shy away from the work. Do not distract yourself with addictions and distractions. Sit, cry, pray, feel, hurt then pick yourself up and be ready to face the inconvenience. If others can do it, why can’t you?Still I Rise
BY MAYA ANGELOU
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
