Thinking About the Uses of Adversity

It's been heartbreaking to watch the news out of Japan in the last week. Like you, I found myself shifting between feelings of horror, terror and compassion. I was at once deeply curious to know more and eager to turn it off and think about other things.

But something else has drifted out of the region along with the horrific headlines: a sense that Japanese culture may just change in response to this tragic series of events.

For instance, in The New York Times, Hiraki Azuma, a professor at Waseda University, wrote that he believes the Japanese will respond to this catastrophe by building a new, re-energized society, one in recovery not just from this "calamity" but from the "prolonged stagnation and despair of the last two decades."

That piece and others like it made me think of Jonathan Haidt's book, "The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom." Haidt writes that adversity can actually make us stronger: "People need adversity, setback and perhaps even trauma to reach the highest levels of strength, fulfillment and personal development." In fact, he says, researchers have begun to move beyond studying how human beings cope with adversity to focus on the benefits of severe stress -- sometimes called "post-traumatic growth."

How does this work? In rising to the challenge, we reveal our hidden capabilities. This, in turn, challenges our self concept: We realize that we are much stronger than we once thought. Second, trauma opens people's hearts and minds to one another, and relationships are strengthened as a result. Third, difficulties changes our priorities and philosophies.

No one chooses to be struck by a natural disaster, and we would never wish it upon another. But when things do happen, might we -- both those in the line of fire, and those of us who are (for now) simply observers -- use them to become stronger?

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Julia Moulden is an author, speaker and columnist.

The Ripe countdown has begun! My new book will be launched in just a few weeks. Watch for the first column about "Ripe: Rich, Rewarding Work After 50" -- a 12-week course in discovering passion, purpose and possibility at midlife.

 

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Comments

[Barbara Hannah Grufferma]

01:16 PM on 03/21/2011

Great article, Julia . . . I can't wait to read RIPE!!

[MimiK]

07:39 AM on 03/21/2011

The most inspiring book on this subject is Rebecca Solnit's Building Paradise in Hell, where she brings her unique insight and singular poetic journalistic style to looking at how communities come together in the wake of disaster and come out stronger, happier, more vital and alive than before disaster struck.

[KathleenQYD]

04:53 PM on 03/20/2011

Great post, Julia. Perhaps we might look at adversity as a strong message to heed a gentler invitation we've received and ignored some time before.... or multiple times before. Whatever it is, I think always it is there or at least it can be used to open to a learning, to integrate as a gift, to embrace our individual and collective capacity hidden there amidst the rubble.

[Susan McCamey]

12:51 PM on 03/20/2011

While I agree in general with this concept of turning suffering into meaning and in "PTSD growth", I think it is far too early to be saying this. It is an attempt to not feel the grief of the enormity of what has happened and is still happening. When I think of how many parents children were torn from their very arms and swept out to see, I simply cannot reply with, "this will make you stronger." It is moving way too fast and, like the tsunami, simply sweeping away the grief and despair.