How to Stay Positive in Life: Overcoming Obstacles with Strong Relationships
Around age six, Tommy Caldwell’s father determined to make his son tough. So he started him rock climbing. Sure enough, Tommy became one of the best climbers in the world. But at age 22, while in Kyrgyzstan for an expedition, he was held hostage by rebels — and he ultimately had to kill his captor to save himself and his group. Things didn’t get much better after that traumatic experience. Soon afterward, he lost his index finger in an accident. And then his marriage fell apart.
What did he do after all of those hard things? In 2015, along with his partner Kevin Jorgeson, Tommy Caldwell completed the first free climb of the 3,000-foot rock face in Yosemite National Park called The Dawn Wall, an experience that’s been compared to climbing vertical glass. Tommy and Kevin’s feat is considered by some as the hardest successful rock climb in history, and the accomplishment, as Tommy explains in his memoir “The Push,” ultimately brought enormous joy and satisfaction.
He also explains that, had he not endured the hardships of climbing as a child, being kidnapped as a young adult, losing his finger, and going through a marriage crisis, he wouldn’t have been able to be the person he is now or do the things he does. That suffering is what enabled him to remain committed to his climbing partner, grow his capacity to meet this challenge and endure the pain associated with it.
The Best Way to Experience True Happiness
The Harvard Study of Adult Development has followed 724 men (and more recently women) since 1938 and is perhaps the longest well-researched study about the sources of health and happiness. It has found that people were most healthy and happy when they were comfortable, when life was easy, and when they got to do whatever they wanted in life.
Actually no. That’s not what it found at all.
In fact, so far, the study has concluded that happiness comes only as a by-product of enduring hardships with the intimacy of quality close relationships.
Viktor Frankl came to a similar conclusion. A Jewish psychiatrist who endured the horrors of Nazi concentration camps, he wrote about the suffering of his fellow prisoners in his book Man’s Search for Meaning. It wasn’t primarily the conditions, the optimistic outlook, or the treatment they received that distinguished which prisoners would endure and which would perish. What most contributed to mental and emotional fortitude was the ability to find purpose in the suffering — purpose in the context of relationships.
5 Ways to Stay Positive by Building Strong Relationships
I’m increasingly realizing that happiness shouldn’t be the aim. Instead, it should be to suffer well in the context of meaningful relationships rather than take the easy, comfortable path.
Here are some opportunities I’m finding to do this:
- Suffer hardship to care for another. Let’s face it: Quality relationships can be hard. There are continual opportunities to sacrifice your desires for the benefit of the other. And telling the truth can be painful. But through sacrifice and truth comes true meaning and joy.
- Suffer hardship to grow. Growth requires deliberate movement beyond your comfort zone. You need to have the courage to listen to others, the self-awareness to recognize a need to change, and an intentional focus to make the change.
- Suffer hardship to work. Labor, even if you love it, can be toil. You might need to prospect for new customers, deal with difficult people, develop documents and reports, follow frustrating processes, work when you are tired, and collaborate to get things done. Work, for and with others, requires suffering to maximize its usefulness.
- Suffer hardship to endure. As Tom Petty sang, “The waiting is the hardest part.” Waiting requires delayed personal relief or gratification for a longer term benefit. As the classic Stanford marshmallow experiment shows, endurance produces resilience and discipline that leads to success.
- Suffer hardship to take a stand. Sticking to a position, setting a boundary, speaking up about something, or telling the truth all feel very difficult in the moment. As humans, we’re hardwired to stick with the pack to survive. To differentiate your opinions, preferences, or feelings can be painful, but it usually produces joy.
Buddha said, “Suffering is inevitable, misery is not.” So rather than avoid suffering in pursuit of happiness, suffer well. Redeem the hard parts of life and triumph over the pain. It’s only then that we can experience true happiness.
Where do you need to embrace suffering?
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