Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - Stronger | A Motivational Speech About Getting Through Hard Times

Episode Date: February 25, 2021

It's not avoiding difficult times, but rising to meet their demands, becoming stronger than we thought possible in the face of adversity. That's what will make the difference. This episode is about rediscovering that strength...

Life is delicate, defined as easily broken or damaged, fragile. There's nothing around you that's forever. There's no permanence in our world, and sometimes this is a difficult thing to grasp. Certainly, it's why we long for patterns of consistency where we can find them. We do everything we can to manufacture some semblance of... predictability for as long as we can. Doing our best to repress the idea that everything we know is as temporary as a setting son.

I had a family member rushed to the ER a few days ago. And thank God she's completely fine. She's back home. She's doing her thing. But I can't stop thinking about the call, how it shook me to my core, how my walls of certainty and predictability were breached.

It was this unsettling reminder that life as we know it isn't guaranteed, that things we love, they're not untouchable. I had to look my helplessness in the face for the first time in a while and realize, well, just how little of the world is mine to control. Which brings me back to a conversation I had

when I was younger. I talk about my grandfather often in my work, primarily because of a few impactful conversations that we had. And it's interesting to me how relevant they continued to be. I remember a handful of times we talk from childhood. And it's like I piece them together retroactively. Things make sense as I get older and kind of figure out what it all means. One of my last conversations with him, we went to this little diner called Leo's along the Cape Cod Canal.

And he said to me, there are things now that seem impossible. But as you grow and you get older, they make sense, right? Even the most challenging things become manageable. And I get mad at myself for not understanding the context at the time, or putting two and two together. But basically, he was diagnosed with the brain tumor, and he knew what that meant, right? And was basically giving me a heads up,

like kiddo, this is going to be tough, but hang in there. That was one of the first times I've dealt with loss of that magnitude. And when you're young, so many things seem stable, they seem certain. You don't yet get the fluidity of life. That stream is moving, and no matter what, it's going to continue to move. Sometimes that means it takes you places and presents realities that overtake the map that you, created for the world, what you understood, what you hoped for, that little understanding of what life means. And I guess I wanted to pick up the baton from that conversation and

pass it on to you with maybe a more comprehensive viewpoint. Because I think contained in those words is a message so powerful, so important that we really can't afford to miss it. It's like, yes, life is unpredictable. And yes, life can hurt and humble us and knock down what we thought was certain it can challenge what we believed and shake our foundations. It can make us feel small in a universe that stretches beyond comprehension. But at the very center of all of that, we are equipped with something that can't be broken. The only thing that can't be ripped away.

The sun around which everything else revolves, your ability to endure. Your strength to carry on, to take one step forward. Whether it feels like you're entrenched in the depths of hell or swinging from the stars in the sky. Your resilience, your ability to not only handle life around you. but rise from the ashes of its turbulence and its misfortune. That will never leave you if you don't let it. Victor Frankel has said,

everything can be taken from a man, but one thing, the last of the human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. See, life might be more than weak in control, or comprehend. But amidst the might and power of its ocean, our determination is unsinkable. And believe me, there are times when you hear this and think, well, okay, that doesn't affect me. I'm good. I'm doing my thing, right? Just like I did sitting at that table over eggs and baking

that morning. And man, I hope that's the case, and I hope it stays that way. But life has a of keeping us on our toes. It never lets us stray too far from the realization that to be human is in some way or another to suffer. It's inescapable, and that's not to scare you. It's to remind you

that, one, storms will come. And two, regardless of how heavy the rain falls or how loud the thunder roars, it will pass. And you are strong enough to hang on until it does. that as you grow and as you evolve,

you become more and more capable of seeing the inevitable, not as the world's personal vendetta against you, but as your time to dig deep and find within yourself the strength and the courage that was there all along. And that's what that morning was. A message that, look, what's coming will hurt, but you can handle it.

And not only that, every time life brings you to your knees, you get back up stronger. That doesn't mean it's easy. But the point is not that it's supposed to be easy. It's that you're capable of handling a world that is not easy. You're capable of navigating a reality that is not simple, a sea that is not smooth sailing. You're equipped to handle the complex.

And sometimes that little, A little reminder is the greatest gift one can receive. There's so much I can't control, but my God, there's so much I can. The reality you have mapped out, the day to day, the things you've come to know and rely on, as much as we wish they weren't, they are delicate. Withering away with time susceptible to the intricacies, the trials, and tribulations of life. your heart, your soul, your world within, that is untouchable.

It's the divine, the sacred, it's strength limitless, it's breath endless. So remember, even in the darkest of times, you are the very light you long for. And as long as you believe that, there will always be a path.