A Look at The Significance of Misfortune in Life

Anna Bunting faces adversity each and every day and this helps make her a better, stronger person in the end. “Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant” –Horace. This quote signifies that every person faces an obstacle in life that brings out characteristics that the person may have never known about. Obstacles of courage, life and death situations, and financial problems show that adversity brings about great talents in many people.

There are situations where courage needs to be brought out in a person to solve a problem. This can result in certain person who just gained this courage to turn their lives into something else. For the longest time, Anna Bunting was a quiet and thoughtful person. Bunting had gone into a language arts class that did not have a good teacher. Bunting brought up the courage to try to challenge this awful teacher as much as possible to try to have the teacher change her ways. Due to these courageous outbursts, Bunting now does not ever shut up and is a much louder and confident young woman. This occurrence brought out the courageous side of Bunting that probably was already there; though she may not have had the opportunity to utilize it sooner. Adversity is something many people overcome and can therefore improve upon some characteristics that not many people get to see. Courage is a hard one to overcome, and for many this can open the doors to many opportunities if they can grasp their inner courage.

Life and death situations can be an obstacle that helps one to overcome adversity. An example would be that a young child could get into a car accident where they need a lot of medical attention. After surviving many years of hardships and overcoming paralysis, this child can finally venture on with his normal life. Instead of becoming that average banker, the child decides to go into the paramedic field because he was inspired to help people; just as he had been helped before. Adversity from life or death situations can spark a change to a better lifestyle in many others, and this in turn benefits not just the person who overcame adversity. Another prime example is Anna Bunting. On a cruise, Bunting had cut her knee on a pool tile and bled profusely into the pool. After the many stitches, she was still smiling, even though it hurt so dreadfully so. Bunting was able to overcome the possibility of the amputation of her leg. With this situation put behind her, Bunting then turned around and decided to become a Link leader to help encourage young and shy freshmen through their first year of high school. Bunting overcame this adversity and it benefitted not just her, but the freshmen class and the other cruise riders (due to the fact they replaced the crummy tiles and made everything super clean). Overcoming life and death adversity can spark the best in people and benefits many people as well.

Financial problems do not seem like a normal adversity problem, but it is! Financial problems can lead to some very nice changes in a person’s character, that may not have been found had they not have been put in this situation. The people in the hood have difficulty receiving good education due to probably being in an awful financial state. One hoodlum decides that he may want to go to college one day. This hoodlum decides to work as hard as possible to get out of his financial situation. He gets a job at McDonalds to pay for athletics at his school, and gets onto the high school football team. This hoodlum keeps at his job and sports and raises his grades from D’s all the way to A’s! After these accomplishments, the hoodlum is no longer in debt and has a growing savings account. A college recruits him on a full ride and gets an opportunity to play college football. After that, the no-longer-a-hoodlum is drafted into the NFL and is now making millions of dollars a year. He was able to overcome adversity and get to live out his life-long dream of not being poor and playing for the NFL. This young man conquered an adversity problem that helped to create a stronger, confident young man. Deciding to get out of his current situation had brought out his inner characteristics of being a natural athlete. Had he decided not to pursue being rich, he probably would try to sell drugs and either end up dead or in the jailhouse.

Adversity is simply just the problems that bring out characteristics a person had inside them all along, or push themselves into creating a better person. Adversity impacts people of all races, shapes, and personalities. It could happen to the richest of rich, or even the poorest of dirt poor. Obstacles of financial problems, courage, and life or death situations are just a few examples of some adversity problems. All these problems, if chosen to be overcome, can really impact a person and make them realize what lies deep inside.