<p>Tough challenges reveal our strengths and weaknesses. This statement is certainly true; adversity helps us discover who we are. Hardship can often lead us to examine who we are and to question what is important in life. In fact, people who have experienced seriously adverse events frequently report that they were positively changed by their negative experiences.</p>
<p>Assignment: Do you think that ease does not challenge us and that we need adversity to help us discover who we are? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.</p>
<p>Essay:
We need adversity to discover who we are because our reactions reveal our values. Personal experiences and literature involving loss and punishment demonstrate peoples inner values and true characters.</p>
<pre><code>In The Color Purple, Celie, the main character, faces adversity through which her strength and individualistic nature are revealed. Celie has been sexually, physically, and emotionally abused by all the men in her life, particularly her father and husband. As a result of the abuse she endured by people she should be able to rely on, Celies individualistic nature was revealed. She eventually felt she had experienced enough abuse, and therefore she left her home to start a career, which was frowned upon at that time, by herself. Without the abuse Celie endured, her individualism would never have manifested itself because she would not have received the push to do so.
The loss of my grandmother also pushed me to follow my instincts of helping others. When my grandma died, I was very sad; however, when I saw the devastation around me, I put my misery aside so that I could console the people around me. Before this experience, I had considered myself a cold person. Without this adversity, I would never have realized that I am actually a very caring person.
In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaneal Hawthorne, Hester discovered her strength of mind that she too would never have realized if she did not experience adversity. Hester Prynne was forced to wear an A on her chest as punishment for her adultery. This punishment forced her strength of mind to show itself because she was forced to endure this suffering without any show of pain or humiliation. Hester seemed weak minded prior to her punishment because she was not able to resist temptation. In reality, she is very strong willed, and her punishment revealed that characteristic.
Personal experience and literature demonstrate that adversity and suffering reveal peoples true characteristics. Without suffering neither Hester nor I would have discovered who we truly are. Celie also would never have lived up to her full potential.
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