Change is one of the constants in life. As things change and obstacles come our way, we have the opportunity to make choices about how we handle them. Strong, successful people accept obstacles as aids to build character and develop fortitude and resilience.
What obstacles have you faced in your life? Which ones have helped you develop fortitude and resilience?
Definitions
Fortitude: strength of mind that enables a person to encounter danger or bear pain or adversity with courage.
Resilience: the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.
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Thanks also to the many bloggers who left kind comments on this post. 🙂
IT’S EASY TO PLAY ALONG WITH #WQWWC
This weekly writing challenge runs from Wednesday through Tuesday. The only rule is to use a quote. If you want to participate, create a pingback to link your post. Not sure how to do that? See how to create pingbacks here. Be sure to link to the most recent post not my page. I don’t see links to my page.
My Favorite Quotes
You can’t find a bad quote about either of these two related topics. Here are just a few of the quotes I found and I could write an essay about any one of them.
Affliction is the wholesome soil of virtue, where patience, honor, sweet humility, and calm fortitude, take root and strongly flourish. David Mallet
David Mallet
It would be rewarding to say that I developed fortitude during this time. My husband had wanted to move to the desert for years. I had wanted to stay in my house. This act of destruction to our front landscaping when we were in the process of selling our home, removed my resolve to stay with every chunk of soil loosened. I became more resilient to the idea of moving at least.
One of the duties of fortitude is to keep the weak from receiving injury; another, to check the wrong motions of our own souls; a third, both to disregard humiliations, and to do what is right with an even mind. All these clearly ought to be fulfilled by all Christians, and especially by the clergy.
Saint Ambrose
This staycation revealed one of my sister-in-law’s hidden secrets – extreme fear of heights. Even so she agreed to climb Moro Rock, the signature mountain in Sequoia National Park. I stayed behind her to make sure she was okay. Once she reached this point, she could go no further in spite of the promise of a guardrail just a few steps in front of her.
Had the park put guardrails the entire climb, she might have been able persevere. As the person without the crippling fear, the job of protecting her became my responsibility. Side by side I helped her inch back down to the steps as she clung to the side of the mountain.
In the 1930s, photographers such as Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange produced images of sharecroppers and Okies, which drew attention both to the conditions in which these unfortunates found themselves and to their heroic fortitude.
Geoff Dyer
“Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it’s less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you’ve lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that’s good.”
Elizabeth Edwards
My friend and I went to Sonoma to carol with her son’s church. That night it poured. The leaders of the city decided not to cancel the event. The words on the song sheets bled. We realized how many of the carols lost us after the first verse. The intermittent singing brought smiles to those who peeked out of their cozy homes to cheer us on. By the end of the trail, the rain stopped. We saw the Christmas lights reflected in the puddles and appreciated the warm fire and hot chocolate of celebration afterwards.
“My barn having burned down, I can now see the moon.”
Mizuta Masahide (17th century Japanese poet and samurai)
“She stood in the storm and when the wind did not blow her way, she adjusted her sails.”
Elizabeth Edwards
Brief Thoughts
No one goes through life without facing adversity.
For some it may be health, others loss, accidents, financial ruin, prison, failure, or even adventure.
Honoring Breast Cancer Awareness Month
Terri at Second Wind Leisure chose pink as her theme this week for Sunday Stills to bring awareness to breast cancer victims and survivors. Thank you, Terri. As a survivor, I will admit, that it took quite a large dose of persistence and resilience to endure the process of ridding my body of the dreaded cancer tumor,
For five years after surgery, radiation, and chemo, cancer survivors take medication to ensure that it does not return to haunt us in some other less-treatable location – like blood, bones, lungs, or brain.
Breast cancer is no longer the automatic killer it once was. However, it is something to take seriously and check regularly to make sure you catch it early.
Marsha Ingrao - Always Write 
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