By Andreale Mitchell ’24
Struggle (v.): to make strenuous or violent efforts in the face of difficulties or opposition. This is one definition, but many different circumstances can define a struggle. Struggles are what human beings face in their everyday lives. If someone has told you “ I don’t struggle with things,”’ they are lying. A struggle can be as small as finding a pair of shoes you like or as big as finding a job in order to survive. A struggle is viewed as a stop sign, a scuffle between meeting your end goal and giving up.
But the question is, does struggle make us stronger? When people are experiencing a conflict and are struggling, sometimes they take actions and have ideas that they probably aren’t used to. In order to overcome a struggle, you need to pinpoint the exact issue and ask yourself what caused you to be in that situation instead of asking yourself, “What is the first thing I can do to change it?” If you knew how to change it, you wouldn’t be in those circumstances in the first place! Although a struggle may bring you down or put you in a condition of unhappiness, without it, where would you be?
Colin Strickland ‘23 says there was a time when he would turn in assignments well over the due date and would lose points or do poorly. He pinpointed the cause of the school work not being done: procrastination. Starting at the root of a problem creates an, “If this, then what?” mindset. If Colin procrastinates, he gets points taken off, resulting in lower grades.
A struggle is a learning opportunity. You can see where you made mistakes or what you could have done instead. If there was an option to make the world struggle free, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t, because if I did, no one would know as much as they do today. People wouldn’t hold value in the things that matter because everything would just come easily.
In order to grow, you must learn, and we learn the most from our hardships. So, when you hit a point in your life where you feel stuck or like you don’t know what to do, remember that you are learning, and what you don’t know can be discovered tomorrow. Let yourself make mistakes. Let yourself fail. It is shaping you, and you are growing one step at a time.
The Raider Press 