There is so much that is captured by that phrase. Situations, problems, incidents, events, and problems inspire us, motivate us to be more creative, resourceful, and daring. Solutions are the full stop to our Journey. My mom always said that you find out someone’s true character when they face a problem. Everyone has a happy and poised mask that they put on in front of people. Ask me, I’m a single mum of three and there is me in public and me behind closed doors when my seven-year-old spills Milo on the carpet five minutes before we have to leave.
When your back is to the wall that’s when the true you emerges. You either fight or you give up. I am a fighter and I will fight for the last breath of fresh air if need be but I know that many are not that way. To be a fighter you need to be built differently. Your priorities need to be aligned towards your goals or dreams and not necessarily self-preservation.
People often wrongly coin fighters as survivors, that’s not true we are the opposite. Survivors will give up anything, integrity, honor, choices, goals, standards and anything else to survive. Fighters, we will give up our lives to uphold our principles, and achieve our goals. We never settle, when we are obsessed with achieving something nothing can make us back down. Not a mountain of pain, not hardships and not even criticisms. There is a saying in my family, ‘Don’t tell Pam she can’t do something, it makes her want to do it all the more!’
I remember reading Napolean Bonaparte’s famous quote, “Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools.” As a child, I was so impressed with the notion that nothing is impossible. I told my mum what I had learned in class and she corrected me, hard work is needed to make the impossible possible, hard work and perseverance. Noting comes quickly, especially things of value.
Art E. Berg said it eloquently when he coined the term “While the difficult takes time, the impossible just takes a little longer.”
Charles-Alexandre de Calonne had his own grandiose version, “The impossible we do at once; the miraculous takes a little longer.”
The world today has lost this drive to achieve the impossible, as I see my own children opting for the easier route, I wonder. Has our prosperity and comfort levels made us into survivors instead of fighters? It is now that I understand the true meaning of ‘situations and not solutions inspire us to greatness’.
Sometimes in life, you need to get lost to find your true north. You don’t know what you are made of until you are tested in the fire of pain, suffering, and rejection. So next time you fall and are lost, rejoice, it’s a chance to find out what you are truly made up of.
Musings of Antonia Rapheal 