COLLEGE PARK, MD –
Making it through life upright is no easy task.
To avoid crumbling, our lives have to be built upon a solid foundation. Otherwise we risk coming crashing down at any given moment.
How you start effects how you finish
For the last couple of weeks, we touched on getting a life and the price of doing so.
To take these ideas into more actionable territory we must start from the first step: building our life’s foundation.
The first step, and arguably the most important, of building anything is the foundation. Without it, all the next steps are for naught.
If a foundation is solid, there is some room for error in the next steps of building. As long as they are identified and corrected, mistakes made in more ornamental matters of life aren’t destructive. They can actually be vital lessons along the way.
A mistake in the foundation, however, is nothing but destructive. The ornamentation of the building can be beautiful, but the imperfection of the foundation will eventually lead to its demise.
You can be sure of that.
A concrete foundation is made from water and a concrete mix. When those two elements are brought together they forge a bond that hardens and becomes very difficult to break.
In our lives, a foundation is also made up of two elements: affliction and patience. Like water meeting concrete mix, when affliction is met with patience a bond is forged that lasts a lifetime.
When the trials we face in the arena fall upon us, they can serve to destroy us or strengthen us. If they are met with patience they will strengthen us.
Many of us have experienced affliction from those closest to us. Instead of being a source of comfort, our families and friends can often be points of pain.
How can we use an affliction like that as a means to strengthen our foundation?
The way is to take the reigns of your self. We become transitional characters by doing so. The people who change the course of history.
When we are on the receiving end of someone else’s unchecked behavior, we must resolve not to repeat that behavior. We must resolve to be better.
We must build our foundation through these experiences so that those after us have something to stand on. So that they can progress to building something beautiful and grounded on proper footing.
Defining patience
Patience is not standing idly by and passively allowing others to wrong us. Patience is ending the cycle of oppression. Patience is receiving abuse and offering benefit.
We all have the afflictions, let’s own them instead of them owning us. We do so through mixing in a great dose of patience.
Constructively,
Tarif