I’m Still Standing

‘Roll with the punches.’ ‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going.’ On and on we hear about clichés expressing strength, inner resilience, and perseverance. Easier said than done though and often people who are undergoing huge amounts of hardship and stress are advised, ‘Don’t be weak. Nothing is too much for people of strength.’

Problem is, we don’t always feel strong. Strength and courage are hard to find when calamity strikes.  And in times of ease everyone is a philosopher, so what do we do? 

Life continually places obstacles in front of us. These obstacles have the potential to teach us valuable lessons in life. Nothing in life is wasted. Even pain, hardship, and sadness can be utilized by us, if we choose, and turned into strength and wisdom. It is up to us how we want to respond. We have no choice about the trials we will face, but we do have the choice how we will respond. 

So if we imagine there is a mountain (a problem) in front of us, we have a number of choices:

• We could stand there and look at it (people spend years and years of their lives staring at their problems, feeling numb, and doing nothing about them);

• We could stand there and look at it and complain (people can live their whole lives grumbling and complaining about a problem and not doing anything about it)

• We could run and get a teaspoon and try to remove it (people timidly make feeble, unorganized attempts to overcome their woes)

• We could run away and hide and pretend the mountain does not exist (people often retreat from their problems wearing blinkers so they don’t have to acknowledge the existence of the problem and then deflect their own misery onto others)

• We could stand there and look at it analytically and work out the possibilities we have of overcoming the challenge. (This takes some amount of inner strength and the ability to ward off fear which is often a means of people giving up and being defeated)

• We could stand there, raise our hands and ask Allah to help and guide us, then look at it analytically and try to work out the possibilities of overcoming the challenge. (In this case we are making use of our God-given faculties, we have controlled our fear which could have made us try to escape or deflect, and we have turned to Allah who is, after all, the only source of help. It sounds like a  recipe for success!)

The other day I was walking down the street and I saw a man in a wheel chair. This is not an unfamiliar sight where I live but something in that man’s face made me stop and think. He was in the kind of wheel chair that is propelled by the person using a hand pedaled mechanism. This particular person was maneuvering himself through the crowd and obviously knew where he was going. He looked friendly and content. His legs hung limply on the platform of the chair but his arms and shoulders were strong and powerful. I looked on in awe, marveling at the resilience of human beings and the mercy of Allah that enables people to overcome such huge challenges. Then I looked around and saw the crowds of people who were ‘walking,’ obviously enjoying a certain amount of good health but in very few of the faces did I see the contentment that I’d seen in that man on the wheel chair. Will we human beings ever be grateful for what we have? I walked more humbly that day.

There is a story about a man who was sitting in a garden and he saw a cocoon.  The butterfly was trying to make its way out of the cocoon and was obviously having great difficulty. The man felt pity on the poor creature and so thought he would do something to help. Without knowing the consequences of what he was about to do, the man reached over and carefully opened the cocoon for the butterfly. Then he lay back with a look of smug self-righteousness on his face and waited for the butterfly to spread its wings and fly away.

What he then saw, further amazed him as the butterfly staggered out of the cocoon, tried to spread its flimsy wings but couldn’t, then lay down in weakness and died. The man couldn’t understand what had happened and was truly confused. Had he done something wrong? Little did he know that when the butterfly emerges from its cocoon it has to struggle and force itself through a tiny space but in so doing its body releases chemicals that actually facilitate its life and activity. Without going through this difficult process at the beginning of its short life, the butterfly will not survive.

So what can we learn from this? Is struggle and difficulty in vain? No! Is it a form of punishment on us, or a chance of renewal, strength, and vitality?

Butterflies don’t complain, hesitate, or stay in their cocoons. They struggle. They force themselves. They emerge victorious and delight all who behold them. They are beautiful, and so are you, if you only knew!