What Makes a Strong Human?

A Different Perspective on Life's Difficulties

For those who have been hit by life. Possibly over and over again.

People who grow up in rougher climates and terrains become tougher than those who grow up in climates more suitable for human life.

Tougher in what way, you might ask.

I’m talking about being tougher and more capable of dealing with the very thing that they’ve been, or haven’t been, faced with – extreme weather conditions.

A person who grew up in Siberia will be better equipped to deal with a blizzard than a person who grew up in California.

A person who grew up in Ethiopia will be better equipped to deal with heat and drought than someone who grew up on Canary Islands.

How they develop through life, what kind of individuals they become, and what use do they make of the environment they grew up in, that’s another story. You might say that the rough or comfortable climate conditions someone grew up in have little to do with what someone develops into.

And I won't argue. The statement I am making is fairly simple and non-controversial: when you’ve been exposed to something, you are better equipped to deal with it in the future than if you’ve never been exposed to it.

The reason why I don’t want to argue about the effect that the weather conditions someone grew up in have on their development as a person is that I am here to talk about a different kind of climate. The climate of life.

Your physical location has (almost) nothing to do with whether you’ve experienced the winds and storms of fate.

A person living in the most comfortable climate could face loss, rejection, betrayal, disappointment, and failure much earlier or more often than a person living in a rougher climate. There are no rules.

And just like the person from Siberia is better equipped to deal with cold weather than the person from California, the one who’s had to withstand the winds and storms of fate is better equipped to deal with them in the future than the one who’s been "fortunate" enough never to experience them.

However, there is one important difference between the climate of our planet and the climate of life.

It is entirely possible and, in fact, common for someone who grew up in California or the Mediterranean region to never have to deal with harsh weather. With the exception of those who like to embark on travel adventures around the world, a person who grew up in a climate that is well-suited for human life is unlikely to find themselves in a situation where they will have to deal with extreme weather conditions.

On the other hand, there is no escaping the rough climate of life. No matter where you live and no matter how fortunate you are, if you live long enough, you will have to face the winds, storms, and droughts of fate. You will lose people in your life, you will be disappointed, you will be lonely at times, you will fail, and you will suffer.

Even if you decide to live in fear and shrink away from the challenge of engaging fully in this life, you still won’t manage to escape experiencing at least some base level of life’s rough climate that we all have to go through.

And if you are someone who wants to courageously embark on this adventure called life, you have to be prepared for the roughest conditions that the climate of life can throw at you. If you want to engage in this life as fully and as passionately as you can, you have to be prepared for the most terrifying storms.

Everyone will have to experience the rough climate of life sooner or later.

So maybe by having to experience it sooner or more often than those around you, you didn’t "have it hard."

Maybe you received a better preparation for what is to come if you decide to embark on this adventure.

You should be more confident about sailing out into the open sea of life. You’ve felt the rain and the wind. You’ve survived at least one storm so far. Probably more than one.

Every loss, every failure, every rejection, every hour of loneliness, every moment that felt like your heart simply couldn't survive any more pain...

If you are still here and still haven’t given up on venturing into life, all those things are proofs and reminders that you are someone who can deal with the climate of life, no matter how rough it gets.

You are someone who is strong enough to withstand the storm and see the clear sky once again. You are someone who will appreciate and enjoy the sun more than most people.

And if, after all of this, you say, "I still wish I didn’t have to deal with all of that."

Well, you had to, and you did. There is no changing that.

So you can either recognize yourself for the strong and tough human that you are, or you can try to make yourself weaker by wishing that you had it easy.

Thank you for reading, you strong human.

If you like my work and get some value from it, there is zero-cost support in the form of subscribing, liking this post, commenting if you have any thoughts on it, and of course sharing this with anyone who would find it interesting.

Or you can consider becoming a paid supporter of Existential Espresso for 5$ per month. By doing this you would be helping me to keep investing time into researching and writing all the content on the daily basis.

What you get by becoming a paid supporter is access to the locked essays (such as “Why Having a Price on My Head Didn’t Upset Me” or “Why Living With a Bulletproof Vest is The Best Thing to Ever Happen to Me”), as well as an opportunity to recommend topics for future essays.

However, even taking the time out of your day to read what I have to share with you means more to me than you can imagine. Thank you.