“Opposition is a natural part of life. Just as we develop our physical muscles through overcoming opposition—such as lifting weights—we develop our character muscles by overcoming challenges and adversity.” ~ Stephen Covey
How often we tell ourselves that we want an easy journey through life. No bumps. No potholes. New but dry pavement. No traffic jams. Plenty of cheap gas.
However, at the same time, we want to have integrity, to be resilient, to have strength of character. When life’s challenges do come—the ones we hope or ask not to have—we want to face them with grace and dignity. And we want all of that and more for our children as well.
But how can we learn resilience—the ability to adapt to and withstand adversity—if we never get to practice it? Is this yet another area where perfectionism creeps in? We expect ourselves to be born with certain skills that can only be learned through experience. It’s like expecting to be able to play a Chopin etude without the work of scales and chords, without the time necessary for rehearsal and getting it wrong at first.
Questions To Consider:
- How will you develop your character muscles today in ways that make you sweat and maybe even a little sore?
- How will you know when such character building is healthy rather than punitive?
- How do we know when to remove obstacles from our children’s paths, and when to let our children learn to find their way through life’s challenges as they build their own character muscles?
- How do we support them and ourselves in this process?
