2020 was a year that turned the world on its head. We all know it. They were very difficult times, and no one—disabled and non-disabled– was immune. However, understandably, people with disabilities were among the groups that suffered the hardest hits. Societal callousness and indifferences could not help matters either.
It has been a pretty bizarre year for a whole lot of us. Yet, we can have hope. We can use harness the power of challenges and transform them into opportunities. We can use hard times as moments to reflect and grow into a stupendous future.
In history, that is what great men and great nations had done to rise to power and prosperity.
If you wanted to learn how every world power and civilization had risen to supremacy, there’s no better place to begin than looking at some of the greatest adversities and disasters that had confronted each of the empires. From the prehistoric time of Mesopotamia to the era of Ancient Greece, to modern times of the British Empire, including Prussia-Germany–up to the present United States of America, nation after the nation had risen to power when they had faced the greatest problems and perils that almost destroyed them.
Throughout history, ordinary people and organizations had only become ‘legends’ in the face of stupendous personal disasters unimaginable. Tragedies and great misfortunes have been the most common themes and patterns that are unique to GREAT NATIONS AND SUPERPOWERS, and PROSPEROUS ORGANIZATIONS.
If there’s anything that we have learned from the history of world power and civilization, it is that we cannot have greatness and prosperity without equaled challenges and adversities. But it is how we choose to respond to our challenges that matter. We have a responsibility to choose to remain positive and unlock our creativity, and band together as a people to beat the test of time.
We can harness adversities—we can transform our momentary pains into opportunities. We can do so by sticking together—by being our brother’s keeper, our sister’s keeper in this in this incredibly difficult time.
Or we may choose to complain and ‘shake the tables, and stretch further the cords of strife and divisions in the community. We can choose to respond to the impacts of COVID-19 and the current harsh economic and social realities by chin-wagging about the misery of others, destroying and mischaracterizing the positions and motives of our fellow person with disabilities.
Or we can choose to come together, despite the unprecedentedness of this time.
We must respond to the current pandemic and harsh economic and social realities (the scarcity, hunger, and frustration) with the right state of mind and attitudes.
Here are FIVE winning attitudes to turn the troubles of now to joy and opportunities of tomorrow.
1. Believe in Yourself: Jagged confidence and emotional issues are a couple of the resultant effects of a disability. Fret not. You can seek confidence in your disability by a function of your competence and ability. Have you looked into tapping potential? You must find it because it is there. Every adversity is adequately compensated for. But with every adversity lies a seed of equivalent advantage. No wilderness, no revelation. Use it.
2. Show Others Empathy: When you learn to feel others’ pain realistically and can connect with them in their grief, you aren’t only providing them with relief, but you are also being relieved in the process. It works. A man in a wheelchair can make himself more resilient and more skillful by feeling and relating with the emotions of a bereaved parent, for example, more as you can get joy by making other people joyful.
3. Build and Leverage Relationships: Do not be isolated. Isolation potentially sets you up for attacks and damaging criticisms. Instead, mingle. Build relationships and deepen relationships with selected few who share your core character and perspective about how you see the world. Make smart investments in friendships and watch yourself become a social warrior that is impervious to the harshest of societal stereotypes toward persons with special needs.
4. Seek knowledge and innovation: Read. Learn. Seek. Reading provides you with an enormous amount of relevant information that allows you to understand how the world operates, which then gives you an excellent sense of balance and a capacity for adaptation in a constantly changing world. But within the covers of those books, you would have traveled all around the world. And nothing would be impossible for you.
Today, it is obvious that the degree of the quality of an individual knowledge-base, the better quality of life they are going to have. In simpler terms, the more we know, the better off our lives are going to be; the more socially responsible we can be for humanity.
5. Be Happy: Cheer up, things aren’t as bad as they seem to be. Be optimistic about your capacity to meet the future. There is a season for everything. Outclass the season and become strong. Live! There is a whole lot to live for.
May the ‘magic and beauty’ that come with this special season fill your heart and home with love, joy, and every happiness.
I wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy new year.