231- Harnessing Hardship: Transforming Adversity into Personal Growth

What if hardship is the secret key to unlocking your true potential? Join me, Elias, as I uncover the hidden benefits of life's challenges in this solo episode of Politically High Tech. We'll explore how hardship acts as a catalyst for profound self-reflection, pushing us to re-evaluate our choices and grow. Discover how overcoming difficulties can fortify our resilience, adaptability, and wisdom, and learn the art of cultivating gratitude, even when life gets tough.

This episode offers practical insights on fostering appreciation and awareness amid adversity. Say goodbye to victimhood and hello to a perspective shift with tips on maintaining good habits like meditation and exercise, and embracing clean humor. Learn from inspiring individuals who tackle their struggles with grace, and recognize your own worth through self-reflection. Whether you're facing trials or simply looking to appreciate life's simple joys, tune in and be inspired to embrace challenges as opportunities for personal growth.

Chapters

• 0:05 Embracing Hardship for Personal Growth
• 12:22 Finding Appreciation Amid Hardships
• 24:13 Empowering Self-Reflection and Appreciation

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Welcome everyone to Politically High Tech, with your host, elias, in this episode this is episode 231, I am going to be talking about why hardship is good. This is a solo episode, solo spiritual episode. There's no guests. You get tired of guests and you want to hear more about me? Well, this is the episode for you. This is the episode for you. So I'm going to give three reasons why it's good. I mean generally, this topic is not limited to three, but I'm going to give you three very, very good reasons why hardship is actually good for you.

Speaker 1: 0:49

So the first reason it makes you re-examine your choices. If you're aware, of course Remember, I've said it in a few episodes awareness is key. Hardship, if you allow it, of course, makes you re-examine your life choices. Either you could choose to double down on it or you can make changes. In short, it makes you self-reflective. I'm going to break those reasons down further. That's reason number one. Number two gives you an opportunity to grow. Assume if you pick the latter. Gives you an opportunity to grow, to become more resilient, wiser, stronger. It makes you adapt better to the situation, because if life was easy, what's the point of learning, what's the point of trying new things? Right, so it can be resilience, adaptability, in short, if you want to put it into more concise wording. And then the third and final reason for this episode is gratitude, appreciation. It makes you want to appreciate more of the simple small things in life, like the fact that you're living. Trust me, emotionally, you're going to feel the opposite. Believe me, I know I used to feel that. If you allow it once again, and awareness being the key, it helps you to appreciate what you have in life and the simple little things like going for a walk, having friends or family, having a job you know, things that people tend to complain about and act very ungrateful in general or the amount of money you have.

Speaker 1: 2:20

Okay, you know there's some rich who are very unsatisfied with billions. They want to become a billionaire. I mean, pursuing for money itself is not a problem, it's how you do it. That's where it becomes a problem. If you have to deceive people, hurt people to get that kind of money. That's a problem. Become a very good business strategy, execute it and help people. That's not such a bad. It's not such a bad thing.

Speaker 1: 2:51

I, you know, I always disagree with that saying that the money's all evil. I believe and this is not unique for me that money is an extension of the person. Money is simply an extension of the person because if the person don't have good intent, well, it's going to show. Or this person just wants to get high a lot, well, that person's going to find a lot more drugs. You know, generally speaking, I don't want drugs.

Speaker 1: 3:05

Generally speaking, I don't want to get too deep here. I don't want to get into the whole rich nuance territory. I want to try to keep this short and simple. Appreciation, gratitude is the third reason. Remember once again, it's not limited to these reasons. So for the comment section, you can add additional reasons why hardship is good. Yeah, get involved. I want you to be involved. If you're listening to this, I'll go join a youtube or rumble heck. Even bus bus probably might be ideal for users who are listening through an audio medium. And then youtube and rumble. First one.

Speaker 1: 3:38

You call it reflection, examination, introspection, whatever you want to call it. Hardship, if you allow it, makes you look at your choices. It makes you look at it in a more in-depth manner. In general, hardship is going to make you question is this really the right decision? Do I need to persevere, double down on it or make some changes. Well, that depends on the situation. If you really want to mend your friendship, for example, you might need to make some changes, especially if the last conversation didn't go too well. If love is pursuing a very hard goal, you might have to think of a new strategy how to reach that. It could be a monetary goal, a health goal or whatever other goal you have in mind. Other goal you have in mind? Just examine your life and there's no one size fits all here. Understand everybody walk into a unique journey, so solutions are going to be unique. That's something you need to figure out.

Speaker 1: 4:36

Now expect me to spoon feed you some answers and, trust me, some of you are not going to want it anyways, and I know when it's in my place to speak, and I'm going to give you a very good example Don't come to me for relationship advice. I'm single. Don't do that. It's not wise. I have experiences. But if you want to maintain your marriage, don't come to me with that.

Speaker 1: 4:56

When it comes to analyzing people, I could give you some tips on that, or I could give recommendations on politics. If you lean Democrat, I'm going to advise you one way. Well, I think you should vote for Harris because of ABC or Trump. You should vote for him because of ABC. I can give you more political analysis and what I truly think. I try to separate political analysis, facts and, in my personal opinion, a lot of people are very bad at doing that. Both sides of the aisle. Both of them are very, very terrible. Why am I going to make this episode too political? I'm just not going to happen. It's not going to happen. So it makes you re-examine.

Speaker 1: 5:29

If you want to repair a friendship, I think you need to approach it with very good intentions and with understanding. Expect to change people's minds, at least not overnight, because we like to believe our own stories. Yes, in general, humans are egotistical and selfish Part of your human nature. We like to hear ourselves more than other people and, generally speaking, if you're a highly evolved person, if you're a highly spiritual human being, this doesn't apply to you. I've talked to normal human beings and that's just the vast majority.

Speaker 1: 5:58

So make sure you re-examine those choices. Am I doing the right thing? Do I need to make changes? And sometimes it's a matter of just keep going, like a marathon. You can choose to quit in the middle of the race, but I can just continue that pursuit to get to the finish line, and I don't know why I'm giving a marathon example. I'm a chub. I'm chubby, okay, overweight. Maybe I need to do a marathon to lose my weight. So for me that would be a hard situation and if you're really determined, you'll keep going, no matter how you feel.

Speaker 1: 6:29

Look, I know feelings are important in certain times. Yes, I did use the word certain times. But feelings come and go. They go up and down, sideways, scribble, scrabble, all over the place. Feelings are directionless, they are erratic. You got to override your feelings in some situations. If it's a gut feeling, it's different. If it's your brain, sometimes it's just acting based on past experiences just to protect you, and sometimes it doesn't serve you well. It doesn't serve you well Self-reflection, introspection, flexion, whatever you want to call it, if you're allowed it once again, because it's your choice at the end of the day.

Speaker 1: 7:07

This is why I keep saying that it makes you think deeper and more critically on what you're doing, and there's no one size fits all. Sometimes you need to just double down because you're feeling like crap, or sometimes you've got to take a step back and continue again when you recover, because you know you do need rest. Rest is not going to tell you to grind yourself to death. No, not at all. Don't do that. All you're going to do is hurt yourself and eventually get yourself killed. If you keep going, then family's going to miss you. Loved ones are going to miss you. People at work they're going to replace you sooner or later. So at least do that for yourself and your family.

Speaker 1: 7:40

It makes you refocus on your priority. You want to spend more time with family? Well, you got to cut down some things. If you want to travel more, you have to change the way you spend your money. Okay, I'm just giving you just simple things. It makes you reflect. For example, you want to travel more, but yet you're going to all these local parts. I mean by local is within the state or county. Okay, you're spending exuberant amount of money, but you want to go to foreign countries, but yet you're running out of resources. Unless you're filthy rich, then of course, you can do that, but not everyone is filthy rich. So you got to make sure that your actions align with your priorities. So hardship could help you with that, if you allow it, and I think I already said enough about the reflection part. That's reasonable. Number two growth. Growth helps you become more, more wiser, more stronger whatever positive amplifying adjective you want to use in there, it's fine or more resilient, as you deal with the hardship again, well, you're not going to be thrown off or surprised like the first time. And I'm going to just give another example for me.

Speaker 1: 8:47

I volunteer as an usher in this church. This is a growing opportunity for me because normally I am not used to talking to so many strangers, assisting so many strangers at once. But this was an opportunity for me to break down one of the barriers that I pose on myself. It served me well when I used to be depressed, but it's not serving me well now because I am no longer depressed and it's cutting down a lot of social opportunities and opportunities for me to do good. So I volunteer as an usher and it helped well. And then it amplifies even my strengths as well.

Speaker 1: 9:20

Resilient is when I make an arrow. I turn it into a lesson instead of a personal attack. For example, I forgot to collect a few envelopes. Okay, I just take the people's advice and help right away, and some some of the congregation does help me. This point right there. So a point right there says tell me, there's a lady there. But I already know what that point is. I'm a very visual person so I could make that connection instantaneously. It's a learning experience because I'll be more up on stage. Sometimes I don't mind being on stage. I'm an anvil for this. The reason I call myself an anvil for this is Sometimes I love talking to people, I love being in social environments, and there's just times that I don't want to be bothered at all.

Speaker 1: 9:56

I want to be as lonely as a hermit crab. Well, not lonely alone. I want to be alone. There's a difference between alone and lonely. Lonely is you feel like you're alone and nobody's there to help you. But yet you want to be alone and you want to spend time by yourself, to relax, reflect or take care of your personal tasks. But those are differences between lonely.

Speaker 1: 10:18

Feeling lonely means you feel like everybody's against you, or it doesn't even necessarily need to mean that this means that, oh, no one wants to be your friend. Oh, I have to be alone to be safe, because people are going to hurt me. People are going to make me look stupid. People are going to make me look stupid. People are going to make fun of me. People are going to criticize. People are just going to criticize no matter what. So you got to learn not to take a lot of people's criticism very, very seriously, especially if they are not in a higher level than you Like. For example, if a lonely person who does not know how to talk remember a lonely person who does not know how to talk, remember a lonely person who does not know how to talk in front of the stage is going to criticize you, you reject that one. But if you're hearing feedback from a very experienced speaker, then you take it.

Speaker 1: 11:08

And what I'm saying is, when a person's giving you feedback or criticism, you got to make sure you know who that person is. If that person's not doing better in his or her life, ignore it. That person just has a lot of nerve to say something. He or she should know their place. But you know, some people are just going to yap. People are going to yap. You just got to pay attention to who is delivering. That.

Speaker 1: 11:29

Advice Comes to marriage. Let's go back to the marriage example. When it comes to marriage advice, you go to someone who's been married for a long time To me. I'm just going to give you reasons to probably either dump that person or work it out, but I'm not the best person. I have never been married, okay, so don't come to me with marriage advice Horrible stuff Okay. When it comes to politics and even technology, even administrative tasks, data I'll be happy to help, more than happy to provide my expertise and slash or advice Marriage, no, and see, that's me being wiser. That's using discretion.

Speaker 1: 12:06

This is why I mentioned this, because I know when to speak and I know when to be quiet. But you also have to meet the position of the student the learner. Okay, because if you think you know everything, you also have to be in the position of the student the learner. Okay, because if you think you know everything, you just indirectly told everyone that you're an idiot. You don't want to hear it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know everything.

Speaker 1: 12:22

Okay, that's not a person who's not doing a hardship, well, or it's just a but okay, you know the other word that starts with an A, but I'm trying to speak more with decorum and cleanliness and decorum is my language as opposed to being edgy, foul-mouthed and controversial. Check my older episodes if you want that. Every once in a while I'll be controversial. If I need to, it has to be with reason and necessity. It's not going to be just because I could be edgy. It's a very superficial reason and sadly I used to say hardship may reflect on that. That's the reason number one. It promotes growth.

Speaker 1: 13:01

For me to change how I approach people, I found out I could be funny without pushing the envelope and it also depends on the audience. The audience don't mind foul mouth or controversy. I could go there, but some people don't want that. So people just want clean humor. Some people just want to be boring, humorous, subjective, okay. Some people just find me just a foul mouth, angry person. Some people just say, yo, this guy is crazy, hilarious. Yo, this guy is stupid. You guys still got real funny. You know it's a slide, it's urban vernacular, okay. So it promotes growth, willing to change, okay.

Speaker 1: 13:44

And remember that comes with awareness, awareness, because if you're not aware, you're going to stay in this loop. And I don't have to quote the Bible about the Jews wandering around the wilderness for 40 freaking years because they were hard-headed, complained, they moaned and whined. You don't want to be that example. You don't want to keep repeating. You don't want to keep doing the mistake of repeating that same error playing the victim card. Look, I get it. Life is hard. I'm not denying that it can't be good. If it's too easy, you're all going to be a bunch of fat, lazy dummies and then, when the enemy comes to invade, it's going to be easy for them, right?

Speaker 1: 14:21

And let's get to the third reason and remember once again, it's not limited to that. So if you have additional reasons why hardship is good, provide in the comment section. Just provide in the comment section, okay. As for YouTube, rumble and Buzzsprout, or even give a review, give a review through Apple Podcasts. I'd really appreciate it. I know I've been slacking off with that one.

Speaker 1: 14:45

So, third, appreciation. Appreciation, it makes you appreciate, if you allow it. It makes you have gratitude for the simple, small pleasures of life. You're able to walk the sea, maybe have income. Well, that's probably slightly tone deaf. We still dealing with inflation and potential recession.

Speaker 1: 15:07

As you should appreciate life. What do you have? Count your blessings. Do you have a good partner that you're married to? Do you have good family members, good friends you can rely on? Do you have a nice house? Do you have good looks? Well, you should all say it to yourself, even though society may deem you as ugly, according to you according to yourself. Do you look good? Are you breathing? Are you still able to talk, see, feel, touch, smell? Do you have a car that has work? Do you have internet? Do you have food? Do you have water, shelter, are you able to walk to the park and experience a sample of nature? And then, when you're really stressed out, and if you're aware, if you have coping techniques, one advice I can say is go to a park or go to somewhere near a river. That has a common effect. That's my recommendation, or, for some of you, it makes you appreciate that you have good habits. Yeah, why not appreciate good habits? Do you stress out? Do you meditate? Do you exercise?

Speaker 1: 16:08

A lot of us forget to count our blessings. We deal with hardship. Let's use the self-reflection and the growth we have to do some appreciation, some gratitude. Again, all comes down to awareness and allowing hardship to do that. The opposite is just play the victim. Oh, my life sucks. I'll never get any better Because you're not doing anything to make it better. You're just in love with the problem.

Speaker 1: 16:34

Yes, I know this is tough for some of you to hear this, but you are in love with your problem. You are especially those who's been stuck at the same problem for a long time, and for me I'm just going to use my metric For me, a long time is six months, two years. Of course Long time is six months, two years. Of course it depends on the situation, but for me, in general, it's six months, two years. Then I even tell a person you're wasting my time with advice, go love your problem. Some of them even tell me I don't love my problem. Yes, you do, because you've been having the same dang problem for months or even years. All right, don't tell me you don't love your problem. Don't tell me you do not love your problem. Yes, you do.

Speaker 1: 17:22

Okay, the more you appreciate life, you'll realize that life is funny, life can be wacky, life is strange. Is it tough too? Of course, but at the end of the day, you can't control how you handle it, except for those who want to embrace victimhood and go on autopilot. Just curse at every single person that looks at you. Funny. Yeah, it's going to make you look like a real tough person.

Speaker 1: 17:44

That's not appreciating life. Appreciating life is seeing. Yeah, you go recognize the bad, but you don't let the bad take over. I know it's easier said than done, but it's worth it. It's appreciating the good conversations you have with some strangers. Yeah, I appreciate certain conversations that I have with strangers, I do. Certain times I appreciate them more than my friends and family because certain of them provide sage-level wisdom.

Speaker 1: 18:10

Of course, there are those who speak a bunch of crazy gobbledygook. Use your judgment to discern what is what. Is it valuable advice or is it goblin gook? Okay, so again appreciation, and I'm going to throw in the God aspect again. God loves and we appreciate. Appreciate the trees he created, the mountains he created the rivers, the entire earth.

Speaker 1: 18:30

Yeah, we humans create something, but for the most part it's with God's allowance. Actually, no, god just allows many things to happen because of free will, and many people attack God when things are going awry. No, it's because we humans choose to be evil and foolish. God could have been a communist, but never. The leader just intervened and just stopped all of it, but we would have been criticizing God. Oh God, you're so hard-headed, you're such a dictator, I don't know how to let loose. Trust me, some of us crazy human beings will say that Instead.

Speaker 1: 19:03

Pray well. God helps you when you're truly ready. God wants to help you when you're truly ready and receptive. He's always going to help us. Because we pray with our biased thinking. We want certain answers, answers, we want prayers to go our way. Sometimes he's giving the answer but we might not like it on how we receiving it. We might not like it on how we might not like what we're receiving or like the way it's being um sent to us. It could be through a friend, you know, I don't know. You have to be in relationship with God to find that answer and we need to listen, be more sensitive to the Lord in general, and that's why I'm working. I'm not sure you see any improvements, but if you do, good. And if not, so be it, but at the end of the day. But at the end of the day, if you want to be with God, it's not easy, it's not, but I prefer it more than anything by other hardships without the Lord. And you have to be with God when you truly want to be with God, not because you feel forced, not because of certain situations, all right.

Speaker 1: 20:03

And the final thing to appreciate appreciate that for especially those who got some spiritual sense that God or higher power exists. Appreciate that, if nothing else, okay, a lot of people don't get to live and they bring it to a scientific level. Let me bring this down to a scientific level, and this is going to get a little gross. Let's talk about sperm and ovaries. When the sperm is being deposited to the vagina, out of millions of sperm that are being sent, only a very few survive. Since you're born, you are the fortunate one. Many of your potential siblings have died in the process. I know it's a harsh way of saying this Appreciate that you live.

Speaker 1: 20:41

If you don't appreciate life, well, of course I'm going to take things for granted. I mean, americans, we take our rights for granted and the government is just stripping our rights away little by little, and this is not a Democrat or Republican talking, it's just the truth. Okay, and since we are ignorant and take our rights for granted, we're being stripped away. We're being stripped away little by little and we need to be more cognizant of that and we need to vote appropriately on what benefits the people, what benefits we, the American people, and for those of you who are in a foreign country, well, I just hope you do what's good for your nation. That's all I'm going to say. Americans, we got to get our act together, because if we don't, we're going to lose our rights and I'm going to say, eventually, the nation. I know that sounds like a right wing talking point, but there's a lot of truth to that. And, trust me, this is not to give Republicans free points, because I've criticized them on a lot of issues. It's like a Dems suit, got my issues with both of those parties. I appreciate people in general and I'm willing to talk to them. That's why I don't have that super critical victory Only when things are super outrageous.

Speaker 1: 21:46

Okay, and one more thing I want to bring up before I finish is a little side topic Susan Wood, just former YouTube CEO. You know she died at age 56 from lung cancer and look, she did many things that I disagree with. Youtube Censorship was through the roof and I didn't like that. I didn't agree with a lot of decisions that she was doing. Youtube is becoming a super corporate company. I mean, I guess I was inevitable. I guess it was inevitable. There's more pro advertisements than pro creator. I would prefer to be a little more pro-creator because we do contribute a lot, not just the advertisers. Yeah, you could allow ads. I'm not against ads. The fact that they have done multiple adpocalypses due to decide to take a draconian approach against free speech and I disagree with that.

Speaker 1: 22:35

And some information that was censored was actually valuable information during the pandemic. My biggest criticism always goes to Fauci Trump social media companies. You're promoting certain ideologies and certain information, but some of that information could actually help people. And let people speak gobbledygook. And let people speak gobbledygook. And let the public decide if those actors are crazy or speakers, doctors Let the public decide.

Speaker 1: 23:03

Now, with that being said, all I have to say to her is oh God, allows her to go to heaven. I pray for her soul. That's all I can say. You know I'm not going to make her a villain because she's not. Google's the alpha bit, google's the Alphabet, google's the parent company. Well, it is Alphabet Inc. That's the company name, the legal name. Google runs YouTube. So I would say the Google leadership as well has some part and some blame in that. All I'm going to say is God rest her soul. Hope the family gets through that tough time of losing a mother, wife, sister. It's tough for anyone, especially those who are close to her. God rest her soul. God can forgive. So that's all I'm going to say. All righty, then let's wrap this up.

Speaker 1: 23:50

So remember three things I've said about why hardship is good. One reflection makes you see your choices different. Two growth it makes you more resilient, wiser. You're not going to come up with the same approach over and over again and expect a different result. That's the foundational definition of insanity. That was a paraphrase quote of Albert Einstein. Okay, keep doing the same thing, expect a different result. That's called insanity.

Speaker 1: 24:13

And then appreciation If you allow it, it can make you appreciate life just a bit more, because there's always somebody in general that has it harder or crazier and sometimes, sometimes they can handle it better. It's because they have gained all that wisdom, self-reflecting, being more resilient and appreciate, and they have done that more than you. Do not be jealous that they're doing it better. If anything, you should pick up on that advice. It could potentially be life-changing. Okay, appreciate that person's advice, okay. And that's the third final point appreciation. And if you have it too easy, you forget, you complain with one little inconvenient, then one little hitch happens. Okay, you do that a lot and I'm not trying to call you out. Just give yourself permission to self-reflect on life.

Speaker 1: 24:58

And I want to say this, even though I don't know you very well or not at all, but you matter to God, yes, you, you matter to God. You matter, and this is the only reason why I am being brave to be saying this episode. If it touches one life, great. If it touches 10, even better. If it touches a life, great. If it touches 10, even better. If it touches a thousand, awesome. If it touches millions somehow, holy blee. I am eternally great, even if I choose to end this podcast. If this ends up being the best episode, so be it. I'm speaking more out of experience and from my heart, okay. So that's all I'm going to say to that. So this is my call to action Subscribe, donate if you want, and have one-time donation and recurring subscription fees.

Speaker 1: 25:47

Okay, from $3 to $10. Yeah, I'm not asking for a lot of money. It's entirely up to you. I want to make sure it's voluntary and that you have enough to do other important things in your life. This is, if you want to and have extra bucks, okay. Share this comment, like that will help the algorithm just to spread this episode to others. So I'm going to keep it as general as possible and as simple as possible. With that being said so, from wherever, wherever you listen to this podcast, you have a blessed day, afternoon or night.