70. Freedom Comes From Limitations

Turning Hardship Into Strength: The Hidden Power of Adversity

Why do we wear our struggles like badges of honor? In this episode, we explore the strange relationship between hardship, identity, and personal growth. Discover how adversity builds resilience, confidence, and character in ways that privilege often can't.

With powerful insights from psychology and nature, we reveal why your toughest experiences may be your greatest asset. If you're ready to reframe your pain and unlock your inner strength, this episode is for you.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
What in life deserves our time and attention and what
things don't.
I hope that as we consider thatquestion, along with other
topics on this show, that we canall learn to live our lives
just a little more intentionally.
This is Seth Roberts.
Thanks for joining me onSkipping Stones.

(00:26):
Freedom seems like the abilityfor us to do whatever we want,
but that's often the very thingthat enslaves us.
At this moment, I kind of wantto check my phone.
But is that freedom orcompulsion?
What most of us like to callfreedom is more of a curated
form of voluntary enslavement.

(00:47):
So I noticed something a whileback.
I really like salsa verdeflavored Dorito chips.
I can eat an entire bag of thosechips, but I noticed that I
didn't actually want to eat anentire bag of chips.
Every time I tried to stop, Iimmediately wanted more.

(01:07):
In a sense, those chips mightbe the most unsatisfying snack
on the planet, and there's justsomething wrong when a food item
or something else in lifecannot even leave you satisfied
for more than five seconds afteryou stop eating it.
Likewise, years ago, when Iwould finally get my kids down

(01:28):
to bed at the end of the night,my ex and I would immediately
turn on the TV and it seemedlike our plan of only ever
watching just a couple ofepisodes always turned into
watching three or maybe foureach night, and somehow I still
would go to bed feelingunresolved.
Not only that, but I couldwatch multiple seasons of a show

(01:49):
and still feel like nothingever resolved.
And I kept going back.
The amount of time I have spentdoing things that left me
feeling worse off than I wasbefore is astounding.
And how can we call thatfreedom?
I think if someone could showus how many hours of our life we

(02:10):
spent on things meant to passthe time, we would all feel just
a little depressed to find outhow much time we actually spent
on things we never really wantedto do.
We mistake distraction for restand we still wonder why we feel
more tired.
Ironically, freedom seems tocome more from what we choose

(02:31):
not to do rather than the thingswe do choose to do.
Real freedom is not doingwhatever you want.
It's the power to say no to thethings that diminish you.
It is the ability for us topursue higher order desires
unencumbered.
Sometimes we get so hooked onthe sugary, sweet things of life

(02:55):
that we lose the ability totaste the more subtle and
nuanced flavors that areavailable to us.
I think we fear boredom andblandness so much that we will
do nearly anything to avoid them.
But to overcome boredom andblandness is less about finding
something more exciting and moreabout allowing ourselves to

(03:16):
adapt.
I feel no more bored than I didwhen I was placating myself
with constant media consumption.
The difference now is that Ican finally taste the nuanced
flavors of life again.
For some time now, to the bestof my ability, I've tried to
remove the things from my lifethat don't contribute to the

(03:37):
things I've decided I want outof life.
As a consequence, I have a lotmore moments of being just a
little bored, but since a lot ofmy old time-passing pursuits
are off the table now, Iexperience just enough boredom
in life that the things Iactually want to be doing are
now interesting enough for me toactually pursue.

(04:00):
One of the best things my dadever did for me when I was a kid
was he offered me $100 if Icould go a year without eating
candy.
I don't think he actuallythought I'd do it, but I was
particularly money-motivated asa child and so I did.
It taught me that I did nothave to be a slave to the things

(04:21):
I thought I needed.
It was a lesson I've used overand over again in my life.
I see people in my life nowthat feel completely helpless to
their desires.
Some of them consciously eatterrible food and tell me that
they would rather die young andbe happy than live a life

(04:41):
without their favorite foods.
But I think to myself how onearth is that making them
happier?
My food may be less flavorfulnow than it used to be, but
would you believe it?
My life is still good.
Not only good, but better.
Today, I get as muchsatisfaction out of my less
exciting food as I did fromeating all of the tasty junk

(05:04):
food available when I wasyounger and, as an added bonus,
I'm healthier, on top of havingsatisfying meals all of the time
.
For all the noise we make aboutfreedom, it seems like most of
us choose to live as slaves.
We live as slaves to foodslaves, to media slaves, to

(05:25):
greed slaves, to ambition slaves, to our fear.
We're driven by these thingsand all the while we tell
ourselves that our actions areour choice.
When really we're compelled todo those things, it's almost as
if we're getting whipped, exceptinstead of being the victim to
someone else.
We're the victim to ourselves.
Except, instead of being thevictim to someone else, we're
the victim to ourselves.

(05:45):
Taking the easy route over andover when we get bored or sad or
unhappy creates habits, andthose habits ultimately end up
being the prison bars that keepus trapped.
We like to mistake freedom forbeing able to do what we want,
but freedom is the ability to dowhat we consciously decide, not

(06:07):
necessarily what we want.
Freedom doesn't come from doingwhatever you want.
It comes from knowing whatmatters and saying no to
everything that doesn't.
It isn't the options you havein front of you that define your

(06:38):
life, but the ones that youchoose to walk away from.
If there is a topic you wouldlike me to speak on, please feel
free to email me at info atskippingstonessrcom.
New episodes will be releasedweekly, every Monday.