Dealing with adversity

This is a note from my journal that I wrote a while ago. At that time, I was dealing with some very unexpected & overwhelming events that dramatically affected me & my family. This experience profoundly shaped my views towards life in general, making me accept that there always will be adversities in our lives and that there is no better way than facing them & moving on.

I’m still not too certain that I made the right decision, nor am I sure about how & whether this decision will lead to unintended consequences that might come back and bite me many years later. But given the context I’m in and the limited information that I was allowed to work with, I suppose this is indeed the optimal conclusion that I could possibly reach. It seems to me that there’s no perfect solution to anything, as there is and always will be some tradeoff that we may or may not be aware of. What matters is for us to be honest & take full responsibility for our decisions, no matter what the consequences may be.

As I was walking yesterday, the ideas of Heidegger suddenly came to my mind (disclaimer: I have tried reading Being and Time, but in all honesty, I really wasn’t sure if I understood it correctly). Specifically, his notion of “thrownness” continues to compel and perplex me to this day: there are no particular reasons as of why we’re “here” rather than “there,” “now” rather than “then,” faced with “these” events rather than “those” — as if we’re “thrown” into our existence for no particular reason whatsoever. There’s no point questioning or trying to dig deeper on this matter to find the reason (perhaps there isn’t any to begin with), and the only thing we can and should be concerned with is how the hell we manage this in our minds.

To elaborate this notion further through my experiences: I could be dealing with these adversities with resentment, blaming someone else on something that can no longer be undone, although I likely won’t go nowhere by doing this. Alternatively, perhaps it’d be more useful and practical to be honest with myself, make the best decision I can given what I have at this very moment, and move on with my life without looking back.

After all, we will constantly be “thrown” into various difficult situations throughout our lives. Rather than being resentful and cynical, perhaps we’d only learn and grow by seeing past our own grievances and directly confronting the challenges with honesty, courage and determination. A life without adversities does not exist, nor should we dream of one. But whether we thrive or wither in this would largely depend on how we decide to deal with the adversities.