Adversities always present opportunities for Introspection.

Everyone in life face big crises or adversities. The quote says “look at your problems as opportunities for you to grow by self-analysis”.

In practice, when there is a crisis, you will be compelled to solve the crisis first and be done with it. Then when will you have time to introspect?

But there is a pearl of profound wisdom in this quote. If you analyze most of the problems, their origin would be from intrinsic factors rather than extrinsic, with few exceptions.

First, think about the real reason for that adversity. Find out the cause whether it was intrinsic or extrinsic.

In managerial terms do a root cause analysis. In both cases, there are a lot of opportunities for introspection. If the causes are subtly intrinsic, then think about your past actions, decisions you made, and also your inner world which might have brought you into this situation.

For example,

If you end up in an abusive relationship and then heartbreak, then it ‘might’ be the result of lack of self-love or any such issues which made you tolerate the abuses, lies, and sufferings in the hands of the selfish, abusive partner and not revolt against it much earlier. In this case, introspect your lack of self-love and low self-esteem, take measures to improve your self-love.

The keynote is that you may be unaware of the fact that you lack self-love before the crisis and if you don’t introspect, even after the crisis.

If the crisis is extrinsic, say, financial difficulties which arose not of wrong decisions, but randomly. In this case, you will act strongly and wisely to solve the problem or you fail to solve the problem. Either way, you can introspect yourself. If you wisely handled the problem, then you would know how strong you are and will be able to use the same strategies in another crisis of the same or different kind. If you failed to act wisely, even then you will have a chance to review yourself why you failed, what was wrong with you. That is introspection.

This does not mean that we have to happily embrace the adversities. People want a peaceful life with acceptable challenges, not adversities. But when you are in crisis, there are also opportunities for introspection.

Change is one of the biggest adversities for people, one day you are living peacefully under your roof eating the best food, having all the comforts one needs, and the next you are in an unknown city, living by yourself and working hard day and night to survive and earn.

For students exams are one of the biggest adversities in life and failures are the reasons for introspection.