Out of life’s school of war: What does not destroy me makes me stronger

In history, experience has been the best teacher. Lessons, insights, realizations, reflections and learning are picked up through different experiences, experiences in the family, school, economy, church and government. Hardships have been part of life and reality. With these hardships comes experience. With experience, lessons are learned. As we live in our everyday lives, experience and hardship has been a part of it. This then becomes of our advantage, learning and strengthening us through these experiences. Discussing different scenarios wherein we may pick out strengths and weaknesses knowing that, frustrations only increase our tolerance levels and what does not destroy us makes us stronger.
In many situations, it has been proven that experience has become a strengthening factor in many ways. In the family, at times, there are conflict of beliefs, generational gaps, different lifestyles and circle of friends. This then may become difficulties. Most times children have a hard time understanding the parents on some rules or sometimes unreasonable decisions. There may be times that children are not given the opportunity to have equal freedom unlike other children, due to strict parents. This then becomes a difficulty for the child, questioning himself or getting frustrated, called internal conflict. This experience allows him to increase his frustration tolerance and builds his strength of character into a more patient child. The child may feel so much frustration over this but in the end he becomes a stronger individual. In school, there are also difficulties faced. It has been proven that grades are achieved if there is a sense of responsibility. In these difficulties that often times are torturing or very hard, these struggles in turn become strength, molding students into more responsible students. In addition, failure may also become strengthening experiences. Failure may give motivation or challenge for the person to achieve after realizing that he or she must face the difficulty, then he learns to be mature and face up to reality. Another aspect is the economy. An example is
Japan;
Japan’s economy has collapsed after World War 2. Stabilizing
Japan’s economy has become very difficult. There have been many struggles like trial and errors, economic sanctions, and country rebuilding. This crisis that
Japanwent through has become a strengthening experience in their part. Nationalism was developed. The country has risen up slowly until today that they have become one of the economic superpowers of the world, proving their strength and rise from economic collapse. Also, the church has gone through plenty of struggles. There have been a lot of attacks against the church in history. The Catholic Church has been criticized and mocked in different ways. An example is the Spanish conquest of the
Philippines. The Spanish was spreading and teaching the Catholic Churches gospel. During that time, the
Philippineshad their own beliefs and some were Muslims. In the Philippine history, Magellan, the Spanish who led the Spanish fleet to the
Philippineswas welcomed warmly, it was only when the Spanish started teaching Catholic beliefs that the ancient Filipinos fought back. This has become a struggle in the Catholic Church. But to this date the Catholic Church is now standing strong. Lastly is the government. The world is governed by rules and society today exists because of the government. History again showed different kinds of governments or governance. There has become the monarchial, communist type, democracy and other ancient governance. These all evolved through experience, and past trial and errors, until it has developed to what we call our Government today. In the
Philippines, the present administration went through a lot of destabilization plots and attacks against it. It went through impeachment attempts, coup de tats, international crisis, the natural calamities or storms and the oil spill. Now with all these struggles and experiences the Arroyo administration has stood up and going strong with more understanding in how to govern the
Philippines.
Now that history, experience, difficulties and struggles has proven itself to be the perfect school and teacher. It proves that in this world, in this reality. There may be a lot of struggles and difficulties that sometimes, we may feel that this destroys or kills us, but then when we survive this and realistically thinking does not destroy or kill us, we in turn becomes stronger. Through difficult experiences we learn, become better, become more patient, become more responsible, and become stronger. Definitely, in the school of war, what does not destroy us makes us stronger