On Adversity
"When a king’s palace burns down, the rebuilt palace is more beautiful" - Yoruba Proverb.
What do you do when lose your crown, and your palace is reduced to smouldering ashes?
You must come to your own rescue, my friend. You must resist the seduction of self-pity. You must do all you can to land on your feet.
Put one foot in front of the other. Take one day at a time. Rebuild your life brick-by-brick. Win day by day. Until the crown is recovered and the palace is rebuilt. For as the Yoruba saying goes, “Ile oba t'o jo, ewa lo busi” (when a king’s palace burns down, the rebuilt palace is more beautiful).
In his imperishable poem, “Keep Going”, Edgar Guest admonishes us not to cower in the face of adversity.
“When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all up hill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must—but don’t you quit”.
I remembered these words when I read the story of former Afghan Communications Minister, Sayed Sadaat, who has just become a delivery man in Germany’s eastern city of Leipzig. Sadaat – who holds two master's degrees in communications and electronic engineering from Oxford University- is probably not having the time of his life, yet, he has chosen to make everyday count. “I have nothing to feel guilty about”, he says, “the more you go out and the more you see people, the more you learn”.
That is the spirit.
Like Edgar Guest, the writer, Katherine May, also offers some wise words that could help you survive the Winter of your life: "We are in the habit of imagining our lives to be linear, a long march from birth to death in which we mass our powers, only to surrender them again, all the while slowly losing our youthful beauty”, she writes, “this is a brutal untruth. Life meanders like a path through the woods. We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time, they grow again".
The beauty of the human spirit. Positive and hopeful. Thanks for sharing this