L08 · Lens
Obstacle as material
Treat the impediment as the material of virtue itself: the obstacle to action advances action.
Use: Setbacks, difficult people, blocked plans.
Boundary: Not every obstacle is a gift; some must simply be endured or bypassed.
Cues
Showing 6 of 6 cues
“Excellence withers without an adversary. It is not what you endure that matters, but how you endure it.”
“For all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.”
“Every difficulty in life presents us with an opportunity to turn inward and to invoke our own submerged inner resources. The trials we endure can and should introduce us to our strengths ... Dig deeply. You possess strengths you might not realize you have. Find the right one. Use it.”
“Examine the lives of the best and most fruitful people ... and ask yourself whether a tree that is supposed to grow to a proud height can dispense with bad weather and storms; whether misfortune and eternal resistance ... do not belong among the favorable conditions without which any great growth even of virtue is scarcely possible.”
“It is circumstances which show men what they are. Therefore when a difficulty falls upon you, remember that God, like the trainer of wrestlers, has matched you with a rough young man. “For what purpose?” you may say. Why, that you may become an Olympic conqueror; but it is not accomplished without sweat.”
Fixed versus growth mindset
Two basic mindsets shape our lives: a fixed mindset treats ability as static and avoids challenge, while a growth mindset treats ability as expandable through effort, feedback and persistence.