When you think about the thinkers and doers, the ones who changed the world in some way, what are some of the common names that come to your mind?

There is something peculiar about the lives of these people. Most of them faced hardships in life before becoming famous regardless of whether they were poor or not. It is just like how coal is turned into a diamond under enormous pressure and heat. Consider Teddy Roosevelt rising against childhood weaknesses, Malcolm X fighting for human rights after imprisonment, Malala Yousafzai fighting for girls’ education against local extremists, and Steve Jobs coming to terms with rejection by his birth parents as well as getting fired from his own company.

Every hardship can either make us or break us, and it is our choice what we allow to happen. In the case of the people above, they chose to face the problems to make things better. And as we saw in Teddy’s speech earlier, it is only the man in the arena who gets the treasure of lessons in each challenge. The bigger the challenge, the bigger the treasure.

But what to do if your life has no challenges? Is it a wasted life?

First of all, the idea here is not that you would have wasted your life if you never did anything “worthwhile.” Rather, it is about taking the responsibility to face life’s challenges. And trust us, life is full of challenges, only if you are willing to see them. Start where you are: Stop snoozing the alarm, maintain your health, start listening to people more patiently, respond to things instead of reacting, and the list goes on. And then?

Then you will see how life is like a game, where once you defeat the smaller enemies, the boss fight appears! As you pick up more responsibilities, you start to learn with each step, and with knowledge comes power. At the same time, these small wins build your strength and confidence. The result is that not only do you become capable of seeing more complex problems and their solutions, but you also muster up the courage to solve them.

We conclude with the words of Seneca: “I judge you unfortunate because you have never lived through misfortune. You have passed through life without an opponent — no one can ever know what you are capable of, not even you.”