The Upside of Adversity
"That is the thing: having it rough. The man who has had it roughest is the man to be most admired. Conversely, he who has had it the easiest is the least praiseworthy." - Robert Leckie
If you squeeze your eyes shut and think deep into your past, you can probably remember an unfortunate event in your life. Not a time you splashed coffee on your dress shirt or your boss made you work late - something actually bad. Maybe it was a car accident, or maybe you got kicked out of college, or maybe you were arrested. For me, it was being robbed at gunpoint. Whatever it is, most of us can think of at least one example.
When it happens, adversity makes you feel like a prisoner in a windowless cell - cold, dark, and alone. It’s overwhelming, scary, even debilitating. But with time - maybe weeks or maybe years - we grow to see our adversity as an important part of the people we become. Once we’re past the pain and the grief, we grow. We become people who otherwise wouldn’t exist. We build things that otherwise wouldn’t be built. We coach people who otherwise wouldn’t have guidance.
Growth from pain
One excellent example is Brendan O’Byrne.
“If my dad hadn’t shot me,” O’Byrne told me on my podcast, “I’d be dead.”
O’Byrne was heading down a dark road in high school. Partying and alcohol were common, and they fueled his temper. He came home drunk one night and began fighting with his father. The next thing he knew, he was on the ground with two bullets in his body and the police standing over him.
Knowing he was wrong, O’Byrne admitted to starting the fight. On his 17th birthday, he was sentenced to a year in juvenile detention. O’Byrne credits these awful events for saving his life. At the same time Brendan arrived in juvenile detention, heroin arrived in his neighborhood.
“I know I would’ve used drugs to counterbalance the pain I had inside. And I know I would’ve overdone it - because I overdid everything,” O’Byrne recounted with goosebumps on his arms.
Being shot by his dad got him away from his dangerous life. Instead of using drugs, he joined the Army, served a difficult deployment, and was featured in several of Sebastian Junger’s books and documentaries. Now O’Byrne serves as a beacon of hope for other veterans.
Embracing adversity is the best way to deal with misfortune.
Embracing Adversity
Wilbur Wright was no stranger to misfortune.
In high school, Wilbur was an excellent student and athlete. He dreamed of leaving Dayton, Ohio to pursue an elite education in the north east. His sights were set on Yale - until misfortune struck.
On a frozen winter day on a pond in Dayton, Wilbur met a man who would change the trajectory of his life. That man was Oliver Crook Haugh. Everyone in town knew Haugh as a local terror. After being prescribed “cocaine tooth drops” to dull the pain of his rotting teeth, he developed a drug addiction. From that point, Haugh’s life was a downward spiral culminating with his execution in 1906 for the murder of his parents and brother. He was a suspect in at least a dozen other murders.
Wilbur met Haugh during a routine pond hockey game. What happened during the game was anything but routine. Haugh attacked Wilbur, knocking out his front teeth with a hockey stick and changing the course of his future in a matter of minutes.
After the attack, Wilbur suffered countless complications. Aside from pain, he needed fake teeth, he had digestive troubles, heart palpitations and recurring bouts of depression. Wilbur spent the better part of three years confined to his father’s home as he recovered physically and mentally from the ordeal. His plans of attending Yale vanished with his teeth.
At the time, Wilbur’s world felt like it was falling apart. With the benefit of hindsight, we can see how this terrible attack changed the course of history for the better.
Instead of attending Yale, Wilbur spent the next three years reading the contents of his father’s library. Instead of attending college, he went directly to work, starting a newspaper with his brother and later a bike shop. With the profits from their bike shop, the brothers funded their airplane experiments. They ultimately built the first self powered flying machine, and they traveled the world showing it off to people and governments near and far. The Wright brothers were responsible for one of the most important inventions of the twentieth century, but we might not know their names if it hadn’t been for Haugh.
Assuming a normal conclusion to high school, Wilbur likely would’ve attended Yale. With his elite education, he may have become a banker, a doctor, a lawyer, or a poet. Maybe he would’ve built a company or helped Rockefeller run Standard Oil. He surely wouldn’t have been working in a Dayton bike shop with his brother. And he most definitely wouldn’t have invented the airplane.
Amor fati
The ancient Stoics had a principle - amor fati - which means to love fate. The idea is rooted in acceptance. Beyond basic planning and preparation, you can’t control what happens. You can control the attitude with which you respond. You can develop a love of fate - a deep burning desire to conquer the unknown. You can use the winds of circumstance to fill your sails - even if they’re not blowing in the right direction - and ride them to the best destination possible.
The lesson here isn’t to hope for adversity but to know it will happen and embrace it when it does. For adversity only feels bad in the present. But the brushes of history often paint it with a rosy hue.
So plan, but don’t obsess about details. Prepare, but don’t fret about outcomes. Persist, but don’t be too stubborn to bend to circumstance. The roads to success are lined with potholes and pitfalls. The best drivers don’t succeed in spite of them but because of them. They adapt. They grow. They learn to react. And they find the positions most favorable for victory.
