Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Psalm 23:4
The Psalm came to mind this morning over coffee.
Some people seemingly have never had a seriously hard time in live, where everything collapsed around them. Serious health, family, financial problems. Whatever.
I have had my share. Things where, if I told them “Yeah, that happened” would take note. There is no need to mention the events because the spiritual lessons learned matter, not the events.
A walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death is what, I believes, separates the wheat from the chaff. Yes, more Biblical references. Taleb would say someone who goes through hard times will, by surviving, be antifragile. Or have the possibility of being antifragile, at least. Some might turn turtle and hunker down fearfully for the rest of their lives.
There is a self-reliant power that comes from such an experience. You know what is within your power and what is not in a visceral way. I didn’t have the words to express this until decades later when I found the Stoics. But you know. I remember being told, when fearful and lost, to put in a day’s work, then stop. You’ve done your job, now tend to the other essentials. Or another time, hearing the brilliance of the advice “stay home and get well, that’s your job today” when I had the flu and thought I should go to work but felt miserable. These were just side lessons in a larger, longer episode in the Valley. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
When you have walked through the Valley of the Shadow of Death you truly fear no evil. You don’t welcome it, you don’t want it, but you don’t fear it.
And when things become easy again (and they will) you bring that inner resilience with you.
Yesterday I brought the power of that inner resilience to bear on a difficult, time-sensitive problem. Not life-threatening, just money. 6 am to 10 pm. Bam. Done.
I thin the fact that I can dial into the inner resilience gives me something that others don’t have. I’m not saying that you can’t develop the power of that inner resilience in other ways. But I do think that you have to be forged with tests that take you to the limits of your ability to persevere. And live.
My grandfather said as much. He lived through the trenches of WW 1 and losing the farm in the Depression.
The first rule of life is don’t die. After that, it’s keep going. In my own Valley of the Shadow of Death experiences I had people around me. They could not live my life or go through the experience, but they supported me. Fear no evil. They were with me.
And now, with inner resilience, God is still with me. I still need human help, but the absolute knowledge that I can survive and be OK at the end of a big problem is a gift from God.
Epictetus would correct me and say it’s not a problem. That’s my opinion, subject to my control. Time to reframe my view of the events.