By Abidemi Adebola.

We go to the school to develop our brain and our mind, we go to the gym to develop our bones and our body, we run to the church, temple, monastery, shrine or the mosque to answer the questions of the spirit, but where do we run to when we need to build or mend our soul? It is only life itself that can handle the matters of the soul and the greatest instrument which life utilizes is adversity!

Nothing has shaped history like adversity; from religion, government, society, education and all. Show me the book of history and I will show you endless lines of adversity in the individual, the community, the republic and the world at large, the same way adversity changes the individual is the same way it changes the world.

A life that will be interesting or count for something must be a life laced with adversity, it is only those that have passed through adversity that can place a true value on life. If we are to remove all the moment of adversity from the life of Jesus Christ what then will remain of Christ? And if we are to remove adversity from the life of Nelson Mandela, Abraham Lincoln, Mother Theresa, Wangari Mathai and others alike what then will remain of their lives and will their existence still count for something or anything significant? The world overcome two world wars and became better for it. I imagine the day the world stops overcoming adversities is the day the world will come to an end.

At the individual level, we run into different adversities; loss of close ones, betrayals, heartbreak, disappointments, accidents, poverty and series of unexpected ends but the moment we overcome all these challenges we have taken a leap forward in our lives. Every scar of adversity is a mark of conviction (No pain no gain!) In life, as in most things generally nothing inspires the soul more than adversity, a sense of adversity can inspire gratitude and purpose. Through gratitude and purpose, we change not only ourselves but we change the world. Peter betrayed Jesus Christ thrice and his life was never the same again. Socrates gave his life for his conviction the apology is one of the most well-read classics in the world. Nelson Mandela spent 27 years of his life in prison but his life was never the same again and South Africa was never the same again. When people go through adversity they come out asking for less but willing to give more, when people go through adversity they focus more on values than appearance. The deep calls unto the deep!

We live in a world that is making culture out of vices and carving traditions out of materialism. The social media has turned the world to a billboard, it is now about all that you can see and not what you can give. The speed at which we are inclined to acquire has made nonsense of diligence, purpose and conviction. We search for heroes where they don’t exist and we are digging for mentors where they can never be found. The truth of the matter is that people go through things, and they survive adversities, they are the real heroes not only to others but most importantly to themselves, they are their own heroes. Sometimes overcoming our challenges is a way of changing the world for the better. We all need to embrace adversity as part of progress.

One of our fundamental flaws as human beings is the ease at which we adapt to a routine, complacency or status quo. Few men live a life of discovery we have always stuck to the life we inherited, earned or imagined not the one we discovered. Therefore, it often takes more than the ordinary to reevaluate our values. We need to be at the bottom, some need to be in the ditch, some in pain, some in tears, some in embarrassment, some in inconvenience and some in crisis for a shift in our core existence to happen. The greatest idolatry is the norm.

Even if we are not confronting adversity we should not and never be far from people in adversity, those who are conscious of adversity have the capacity to understand that life could be worst. Those who appreciate that life could be worst are those whom usually lives their life in full. Everyman needs adversity may we never be tempted beyond our capacity