One of the concepts that's helped me through adversities in life is the idea that things (Schmidt) happens: good and bad. As we go through hardships in life, difficult times, we may ask ourselves "Why is this happening right now?" or "Why me?" There may be trials in our lives that push us to our limits, trials that may make us feel as if we will break, misfortunes that create chaos within ourselves and lead us to believe we have stumbled from our intended paths.

I feel as though we are better able to overcome such adversities when we come to understand and accept that things will happen. Although we, ourselves, are the decision makers in our lives, there will be events that we do not foresee; taking us by surprise.

I feel that once we come to understand and accept this we are then able to focus our efforts and energy on how we can and will overcome these adversities. Let us not waste energy on stressing over why these things are happening. Let us focus on how much stronger we will be as a person once we overcome the hardships we are to encounter, how much we have grown as a result of the hardships we've already experienced and gotten past.

Isn't it safe to say that the adversities, the difficult times, are somewhat necessary for us to grow as a person? After all, don't we learn significantly more when we personally go through something as opposed to someone giving us advice or telling us what they've gone through? I'm sure there has been at least one time where we gave a friend of ours advice only for it to go right out the other ear as they go and do what we might have advised them against doing. We, ourselves, might have even been the ones that let the advice go right out the other ear. It seems as though we just have to personally experience things for ourselves in order for us to learn.

Nonetheless, I truly feel that the hardships are necessary as they shape us into the people that we are meant to be. Don't get me wrong, this does't mean I wish to encounter every single adversity possible just so that I can continue to grow as a person, but an adversity here and there may do us good. I'm also not saying that we should create adversities for ourselves. I'm just saying that we shouldn't dwell on or worry about why we experience misfortune. We especially shouldn't worry too much about "what if?" scenarios-- whether a certain misfortune or event in general will happen or not. Many of the times we just end up wasting energy and stirring up not so pleasant feelings for something that wasn't as terrible as it seemed or for something that didn't even end up happening at all.

Things will happen, my friends. Whether we want them to or not, things will happen. But we can and will get past every hardship we encounter, no matter how difficult or demanding it may be.

And in the end, we will always come out a stronger person.

Stay strong my friends.