Crises are hidden treasures

Throughout the course of one’s life, it has been mutually agreed that obstacles in multiple aspects of life are not welcoming to say the least. However, there has been an exponentially growing pool of opinions suggesting that adversity, though challenging to overcome, brings upon themselves an unseen goldmine of opportunities and lessons to be learnt and experienced. In this essay, I will simply argue that despite the fact that tragedies are truly unwanted in people’s lives, it is unexpectedly the greatest chance for us to actually learn from our own mishaps and improve. My first point will be to explain rather carefully how the pre-conceived notions of tragedy have deeply engrained into our innate nature and how this has limited immense potential (1), and my second point will be focusing on the virtues of hardships when it comes to striving towards continuous improvement (2). To commence, I will state that as hard as we try to avoid missteps in our journey of life in order not to face tragedy, it hinders us from truly learning and adapting to the current world. We as humans are hardwired to the habit of fight or flight, and oftentimes running away from our problems seems much less daunting than facing them. But, realistically, hardships are inevitable, and there is truly no other way than to face up to the matter. Unless we devise a solution, implement it, and improving it through the process of trial and error, there is not really any other method to solving our problems. To give an example, every invention ever created throughout history, from lightbulbs to telephones, has been birthed due to problems. Thomas Edison invented lightbulbs in order for workers to accelerate their efficiency by the ability to work at night, and Graham Bell invented the telephone in order to solve the issue of communicating with people far away. Tragedies, despite being painful at times, are there for a reason, so why not take it to our full advantage? Continuing to my second point, as crises emerge, humans will always find new ways to improve the situation, and therefore alleviate the issues at hand. We will not truly learn something unless it is through adversity. For instance, in the past, vaccines for hazardous diseases usually need 10 to 15 years in order to be developed. But with cutting-edge technology and the increasing demand for a cure to COVID-19, the COVID vaccines are being distributed to the masses in less than 3 years. Nothing can fully push humans to break our limits like how adversity does, and thus we continue to progress at radical rates with partial thanks to difficult times. To conclude my point, crises, though horrible, poses new chances for humankind to improve and continue to break limits unlike any other learning opportunities.