Et Lux in tenebris lucet
~ and the light shineth in the darkness ~

 

Explore (aka: challenge, struggle, face obstacles, experience discomfort and resistance, etc) more; seek immediate gratification (aka: pleasure, boredom, lack of lasting satisfaction when getting something easily and immediately without any investment in the process, etc). A maxim I’m hearing a lot of lately, in different forms and forums.

 

The bravest people I know are those who have been forged by the fires of life and emerged with a wisdom and a kindness despite (is it despite of or because of?) their experiences that would justify for many of us our complacency, bitterness, anger, pride, you name it.

 

Folks, we need the dark to notice the light. Trite (depending on what circles you hang out in, I guess) but true! You can’t have one without the other. You certainly cant have a deep appreciation of one without the other.

 

WE NEED THE DARK AND THE LIGHT.

 

But how many of us shy away from the dark? Deny it? Move away from it? Fail to see its purpose?

 

“But in robbing the present of its reality there lay a certain danger. It became easy to overlook the opportunities to make something positive of camp life, opportunities which really did exist. Regarding our ‘provisional existence’ as unreal was in itself an important factor in causing the prisoners to lose their hold on life; everything in a way became pointless. Such people forgot that often it is just such an exceptionally difficult external situation which gives man the opportunity to grow spiritually beyond himself.

 

Varying this, we could say that most men in a concentration camp believed that the real opportunities of life had passed. Yet, in reality, there was an opportunity and a challenge. One could make a victory of those experiences, turning life into an inner triumph, or one could ignore the challenge and simply vegetate, as did a majority of the prisoners.” More excerpts from Man’s Search for Meaning

 

Those challenging and dark times deserve a bit of celebration in a way. Those are the times where the best opportunities lie. Those are the times in which we have the capacity to utilize what’s at our disposal while also transcending it. Within every setback lies a seed for success; within every obstacle lies opportunity. Don’t take it from me. Viktor Frankl, Holocaust survivor, probably knows what the heck he’s talking about!

 

*photo is mine from a painting I saw in a model home a year ago 😉