"There is no way to avoid every single obstacle we may face in life so the best thing to do is to use them as opportunities to grow as a person." (source: Pixabay)
By Adam Zich
Adam Zich won third place in the B category in the LEAF Academy Essay Competition alongside Milan Polák. He chose the topic "How do the obstacles we encounter in life make us better?". He studies at the Gymnázium Pre Mimoriadne Nadané Deti grammar school in Bratislava.
In life we are bound to encounter many obstacles and challenges. While these may vary in importance and significance it is an undeniable fact that they always have an impact on us. It is then solely our choice if their effect is positive or negative, whether we choose to learn, grow and move forward or to stagnate, to always take the shortcuts and avoid making an effort.
I would differentiate between two types of obstacles we can come across. There are the ones we can control and overcome like a big exam where one of the solutions is to study the topic and therefore be prepared for any and all questions, which may appear there. And the ones out of our reach, where we have almost or entirely no control over what happens. This being for example a death of a family member or a war breaking out. Both types having differences but also similarities present an opportunity to make ourselves better.
The first type of obstacles as described above faces us with a very direct problem. In case we know what is needed to overcome this problem this forces us to do one or multiple of things. It is to either broaden our knowledge, as in the example with an exam, which faces us with yet another challenge in case we don’t know where to find the information required helping us in navigating the current world of information oversaturated with propaganda, misinformation and censorship. To acquire new skills, if the problem is something needing that like when I was fixing a puncture on my bicycle this week. Firstly I had to detach the wheel from the frame. Then I had to remove the internal part of the tire from the protective outer layer. This process was particularly difficult due to the volumetric thermal expansion of materials which stretches objects with rising temperatures or as in this case shrinking from low temperatures making it borderline impossible to pull the insides out. Overcoming this particular obstacle has helped me in a multitude of ways. It was a form of light exercise because I had to exert a lot of strength to take it all apart. Secondly it has taught me a valuable new skill, which may come in useful if I somehow find myself in a remote location far from any kind of help or civilization with a puncture. This has also an added effect of making me calmer when cycling through mountains and forests because I always know I can rely on myself to get back home safe and sound.
As for the second type of obstacles. It is our ability to deal with unexpected or unpleasant changes in our environment that is flourishing due to these types of challenges. To again use an example from personal experience, my schoolmate has died this school year. It was an unexpected and devastating turn of events which has left a mark on every single person at our school. While tragic and honestly still quite incomprehensible it has reminded me to value and cherish everything that I have because it is not a guarantee and can just disappear in a flash.
Arriving at a barrier in our pursuits may sometimes even be a good thing on its own. I am going to use a somewhat far-fetched example to better illustrate the point. Let’s say a person wants to make a device that would after being plugged into a power outlet separate the electricity produced in nuclear power plants and the one produced by renewable energy sources. Due to the fact that there is physically no difference between these two things and therefore no plausible way of constructing such a device the person would logically seize the efforts to construct such a thing and save themselves time and money they might have otherwise wanted to allocate to his project before encountering the obstacle. It is therefore not only the overcoming of an obstacle that can make us better, as the obstacle in the example above was clearly not overcome, but the fact that we have to deal with a dent in our plan and most importantly our reaction are what constitutes the personal growth.
To conclude, there is no way to avoid every single obstacle we may face in life so the best thing to do is to use them as opportunities to grow as a person. They often even guide us towards improvement if we want to overcome them so giving into them and trying to solve the problems we face instead of avoiding every little inconvenience is likely to result in making us better. And it is also important to remember that even in the most dire of circumstances there is always a way to find and take away at least something of value.
The English Essay Competition is organised by LEAF Academy, an international boarding high school in Bratislava. The competition is open to all Slovak students from primary and secondary schools who are passionate about writing in the English language.
