« Rock bottom has buit more heroes than privilege »
Author: unknown
It’s inevitable you’d think, to get up when you’re down. But it all depends on how down you go and if you have the mental resources go get up
This quote got me thinking of how interesting it is that only when in pain and suffering do we really appeal to all our resources and we manage to do things that we wouldn’t normally do. Survival instinct is the first thing that comes to mind, but for me it’s not just that. Suffering changes you.
The word “hero” is a bit pretentious and doesn’t really fit with what this quote meant to me, but finally, you get to be one if you are a survivor of a long and hard battle, one that you have to go through ONLY if you hit rock bottom and IF you want to get up, and most of all, a personal battle…a war with your circumstances and at times, with yourself.
The other part that is not necessarily reflected in this quote, is what a person can do when going through those changes, how the new perspective on life gives them a new perspective on themselves and therefore allows them to express themselves also in a way that maybe, before, when all was good, they would have never thought of.
Also….thinking about privilege, I guess I cannot really see it as a specific thing: for me privilege is when you don’t have any mental or material issues, and when you get to love and be loved. It’s parts of the needs mentioned in the first three levels of Maslow’s pyramid: physiological needs, safety needs, love and belonging. But privilege can be so many things to so many people…
And then there are the last two: self-esteem and self-actualization..
I guess being deprived of the basic needs, makes us go to the higher ones, the only ones that can save us, the ones linked to our inner self. We need ourselves in order to survive. When in great difficulty we are obviously confronted to situations that we never knew before, and the acceptance thresholds are getting bigger and bigger, and what we might not realize is that they get that way precisely because we are using resources that we never used before, or used very little.
We learn to accept and to avoid, and the two make us capable of going through whatever it is we are going through, and along with that, we grow, as individuals.. In a way, having to find those inner resources creates mental patterns that shape a version of us which will be our biggest ally in all future difficult situations.. This version makes us lose fear and show defiance, makes us indifferent to the little details that used to bother us, makes us speak our minds and hold our ground, it makes us attack in order to protect yourself. Having a “safety net”, one that privilege could provide, could indeed soften this version…
But in the end it all depends to what “rock bottom” is for a person. The way I see it, what is easy for someone, is hard for someone else, and the other way around. So it would be fair to say that we all encounter difficulties and could, because of them, get to a point which for us could be rock bottom. Maybe for others it would be a breezy day in their life…nevertheless, getting to THAT point creates something and it’s in us. Along with trauma, but that is another subject…
Also, what today seems to be rock bottom, tomorrow is just underneath the one you’ve just reached, and it could go even lower. Never underestimate the “worst scenario …it sounds sad because it means your deepest self is now rough and you’ll never see things the same way you did before, you’ll never find a sense of real calm. But it also means that you’re now able to predict and deal with problems as soon as they appear, so you can deal with potential future hells faster and better, or even avoid them altogether.
And finally, as I am (inevitably) deriving, I also think about acceptance and choices And as I write the word “accept” I have other thoughts coming to mind : when to accept, when to reject, when to fight against….so many choices and there is the main thing : choosing. The right choice or choices are the ones which bring us up. The stories we live, the lives we lead…they’re either created by our choices or….by facts and situations that leave us no choice.
And I don’t know which is worse: to realize that we’ve reached rock bottom because of our own choices or because of an external context which imposes itself to us and to which we have to adapt no matter what.
So when you think about it yes, rock bottom is a powerful teacher, not the one you’d want to have, but the best one nevertheless.