Chapter 13.2: Selflessness and the Value of Hardship and Failure

 

What do I mean by ‘value great hardship as you do yourself?’

Why do I have great hardship?  Is it not because I have a self?

If I didn’t have a ‘self’ what hardship would I have?

Instead of just valuing the good times, we also need to equally value the hard times.  We tend to only appreciate the good times but the difficult times can be some of our greatest teachers.  As C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) wrote, “hardship often prepares an ordinary person for an extraordinary destiny.” Our failures don’t have to define us – they can refine us – if we use them as stepping stones instead of stumbling blocks.  We can use our greatest failures as fuel to motivate us, driving us to greater achievement and development.  Our worst failures can become fertilizer to nourish and nurture greater growth and abundance, which will then empower us to be of greater service to others.  As the Dalai Lama taught, “It is under the greatest adversity that there exists the greatest potential for doing good, both for oneself and others.”

Why do we encounter hardship?  Because we are physical beings in this world.  We have bodies and minds, thoughts and emotions, selves and identities.  We create belief systems and then we experience them.  As is recorded in Talmudic tradition and quoted variously by British author H.M. Tomlinson (1873-1958), French-Cuban author Anaïs Nin (1903-1977), and most recently Stephen R. Covey (1932-2012), “We see the world not as it is, but as we are.”  Animals don’t know that things are difficult or easy – only human beings have the reflective capacity to pass judgment and create narratives – for better or for worse – on our experiences. 

Instead of embracing our true identities, we create a subjective “self” in the world, replete with limiting labels, subjective social stereotypes of beauty and goodness, cultural constructs of worth and meaning, and get caught up in the roller coaster of relative reality and the corkscrew of constant comparisons.  We elevate or diminish ourselves in performance-based worth, put ourselves on display, show ourselves off, and try to prove our worth out there instead of embracing the treasure that is already within.  As the Buddha taught, “We are formed and molded by our thoughts. Those whose minds are shaped by selfless thoughts give joy when they speak or act.”  Like water, selflessness gives generously without personal agenda or self-interest.  Selflessness, then, is the sagely secret to valuing hardship just as much as we do our own being – it is the key to longevity and lasting legacy.

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