Preview

Challenges in life brings out the best in a person

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
712 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Challenges in life brings out the best in a person
Benjamin Koh
Class: 4.03

Topic: ‘Challenges in life bring out the best in a person.' Is this always true in your experience?

Challenges in life are obstacles that one has to surmount, to overcome in order to progress and to do so usually requires a display of admirable qualities such as courage and perseverance. Does challenges in life always bring out the best or the worst in a person? This is debatable as challenges can either make or break a person. Some people may not be able to hold out in a 'test' but succumb to the pressure. Tough times can reveal the true colours of a character, either for better or for worse, as in my personal experiences.

I remember when I was younger and when faced with adversity, I would either hide or run away from it, rather than take it on. One vivid instance of this was at my first camp with my uniformed group, the National Cadet Corps. it was the first time I was faced with a daunting experience. Every time my instructors barked out an order or reprimanded us, and these 'lecture' sessions seemed unending, I would cower at the back of my group, too shaken to do anything else. I was at a loss because the task of survival and completing the camp seemed so challenging that rather than bring out the best in me, actually did the contrary.

Every of the team challenge activity was the same - I was the 'burden' of my team, the 'weak link', who was always too frightened to do anything, always too timid to speak up and above all always too much of a coward to help my peers. If I could just run to save my skin and leave them to 'die' on enemy territory, I would. Hence, that is why adversity and challenges can sometime bring out the worst in a person, like they did to me, in this instance.

However, what doesn't kill you make you stronger, and as I grew older, the more I found this to be true. One experience that I rose to the challenge was during an expedition to the jungles of Brunei during my early Secondary Three days.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    People learn to face their fears and become braver. On certain ocassions it is more difficult than others, "By this time I had peed my pants" pg. 47. In Sarah Ellis' short story, Ken faces a problem that involves great amounts of fear and bravery. "She slipped. She knocked her head. Child drowns in four inches of bath water.... I have to go in" pg. 48. He finds it difficult to cope with this problem, though it is a matter of great importance and he focuses and tries his best to avoid these fears and find the strength within himself. "I happen to suffer from claustrophobia." pg. 48. He eventually manages to take a deep breath and forget all about these fears as he heroically plunges into an attempt to help the possibly endangered Ib, who is fortunately found "crouched at the edge of the stream" pg. 49.…

    • 670 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Scott Monk Raw

    • 303 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Throughout the past couple of months my fellow peers and I have been studying the topic ‘challenge’ and how it affects our lives and people around us. In our everyday lives we are confronting challenges, some are as small as walking up a few steps, and some are larger and more challenging that could be life or death circumstances.…

    • 303 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tom Brennan Speech

    • 728 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In life, everybody faces obstacles that have to be encountered. Sometimes they are good, and other times they are bad. I think it’s the individual coping with these new experiences that leads to significant rewards and life skills that help make growing up and transitioning into society easier.…

    • 728 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Raw - Scott Monk

    • 826 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Throughout the past couple of months my fellow peers and I have been studying the topic ‘challenge’ and how it affects our lives and people around us. In our everyday lives we are confronting challenges, some are as small as walking up a few steps, and some are larger and more challenging that could be life or death circumstances.…

    • 826 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Everyone will behave differently when they face adversity. Some of them might give up easily, or they fight with their courage instead of accepting adversity and tragedy. In True Notebooks, Mark Salzman shows us how the boys deal with obstacles. If those boys can’t overcome obstacles, obstacles overcome them. Therefore, they must persist in the end when they face adversity. Sometime, some of them are lucky to overcome obstacles by persisting in the end, but many of them can’t overcome obstacles because of the situation, or they don’t even want to overcome obstacles.…

    • 695 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Life is full of obstacles, some that just require positivity and perseverance and others that require that and actual actions. They affect our lives in many ways but usually they are set upon us so that we can prove to ourselves what we are capable of. However, we do not see that until we had overcome it.…

    • 549 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    JGT2 ALL

    • 10845 Words
    • 44 Pages

    When we face challenges in life that are far beyond our own power, it 's an opportunity to build on our…

    • 10845 Words
    • 44 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Adversity can present itself according to a vast spectrum of severity and can have drastically different effects on individuals. When faced with adversity, people either learn to adapt to what has happened and make do with the circumstances, whereas other individuals will…

    • 1112 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Horace's Adversity Quote

    • 446 Words
    • 2 Pages

    I noticed how people react differently while facing adversity in one of the books I read this year. In Lord of the Flies, a group of children land on an island from a plane crash with no adult supervision. At first they were calm and even thrilled at the idea of being on an island with no limits, as they assumed a rescue team was already on the way for their salvation. As days went by they noticed noone was coming to their rescue, and this brought out talents in every one of them. Adversity helped them discover within themselves leading skill, surviving skills, and how to cope with major responsibilities.…

    • 446 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Overcoming Adversity Essay

    • 1279 Words
    • 6 Pages

    When these moments in life hit, people see them as barriers, unable to be broken down. However, there is a point when an individual demonstrates their true qualities or characteristics, which would not have come to light unless an adversity had risen. Adversities can allow individuals to view the world in a new perspective due in part to their hard work, though this is not always the case as the pressure may become to intense for some individuals to conquer.…

    • 1279 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.” What the Roman poet Horace was saying was that when there is an obstacle in our way, our true colors will radiate. I could not agree more. When we as human beings feel passionate about achieving a goal, we may learn something new of ourselves, maybe a new trait that we did not know we possessed, when we reach new heights we did not know we could push ourselves towards. Challenges are similar to tests. Challenges are faced every day, but how we respond to them determines how strong we really are. Prime examples are superheroes and students that move dramatically.…

    • 649 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    American Dream

    • 3793 Words
    • 16 Pages

    unexpected
occurs,
does
one
turn
his
or
her
back
on
all
that
has
been
worked
for?
In…

    • 3793 Words
    • 16 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Adversity Essay

    • 358 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Adversity can help determine what one is truly able to do. For example, as a student,…

    • 358 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Adversity In Monrovia

    • 211 Words
    • 1 Page

    The biggest adversity I had faced in my life was the WW3 in Monrovia, Liberia in 2003, when the government and rebel forces were fighting for control over the city. This became very hectic not only was it hectic, but many people had lost their lives, People were shot in broad daylight and others were treated cruelly. Food was hard to find because people were afraid to open up their market because It was so frightening and you never knew when the rebel would come.Every corner you turned gun shots were being fired. It was a hard thing to go through and witness as a young child.I never talked about the situation to anyone I overcame it on my own because i am a strong minded individual and all these years i kept it together. This situation has…

    • 211 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    had a bit of a rough start. He was fired by a newspaper editor because, "he lacked imagination…

    • 279 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays