When the wave of adversity hits, it arrives unexpectedly.

It sweeps you into its current with full force and rigor, and without a hint of care, kindness, or compassion.

One moment you’re driving your car on the freeway, and in the next, you’re stretched out in an ambulance. One moment you’re watching a show on Netflix, and in the next, you’re dealing with the shock of the diagnosis. One moment you’re preparing for a meeting at work, and in the next, you’re reading an email about how you’ve been let go from your job because the economy is struggling to adjust in the presence of this lingering pandemic.

When the wave of adversity hits, it arrives in the form of a tsunami. It’s big. It’s overwhelming. It’s scary. And, in an instant, it sweeps away all sense of normality... Adversity has no mercy.

Last week, I was invited to speak on a podcast.

While on the call, I was asked this question: “The pandemic has left a lot of people jobless and lost. They’re struggling. What is your message to them?”

I paused, for a moment, and then replied with words of encouragement:

1. Try to focus only on what’s within your control.

2. Journal often to make sense of the struggles and process your emotions.

3. Realize that no one has it all figured out.

4. Try and focus on the little things that you can be grateful for every day.

5. Choose one thing (a skill, a practice, a hobby) that can serve as your daily anchor and stick to it.

We ended the call on that note, but that question stayed with me for a little longer. It left me pondering: What do you do when the wave of adversity hits? What do you do when it crushes you like a rock and knocks you down in utter shock, floundering with defeat and struggle?

You do the only thing you can.

You let the wave wash all over you.

The Only Way Out is Through

In a poem dating back to 1915, poet Robert Frost wrote that “the best way out is always through.” Well, sometimes, the only way out is through.

And that is especially true when we’re faced with adversity.

Where do we run? And what’s the use?

We are given no option but to let that wave wash over us. To submerge with it. To let it carry us back to shore. Because it will—it always does. And, sure, when we reach that shore, we arrive exhausted, worn-out, with scraped knees and a broken spirit, but we will manage to stand up again—we always do.

When the wave of adversity hits, we renounce our inner-will. We claim defeat. We fall victim to the flawed belief that we will drown because we think we don’t have the strength in us to survive the struggle ahead. But we do—we always do.

So whether you’re dealing with adversity today or will be faced with another wave tomorrow, here’s what I want you to realize:

The only way out of it is through it.

You’ll naturally want to flee and you’ll naturally want to resist, but resistance will lead you nowhere because resistance to what is will only cause further suffering and confusion. So here’s what to do when adversity hits: Accept it, adapt to it, and evolve through it.

When The Wave of Adversity Hits, First, Accept it

Three years ago I flew off a bike and blacked out on the street. When I opened my eyes, my vision was level with the ground. Two men lifted me off the pavement and a circle of strangers came to my aid.

In an instant, the wave of adversity knocked me straight off my path in life. It fractured my spine and tibia, tore a ligament in my knee, and dragged me into an unexpected 9-month recovery journey.

In the few weeks that ensued, I found myself constantly asking these questions:

• “Why did this happen to me?”

• “Why am I so unlucky?”

• “Why me?”

We all deal with the same initial chain of thoughts. And that’s okay—it’s normal. That’s how we deal with the shock of the event. But it’s the continuous dwelling on our misfortunes that destroys us.

When we entertain the thoughts of resistance and denial, we become delusional and we drown with the wave of despair. We suffocate as we continue to belittle ourselves by kicking and screaming and playing the victim role. We self-absorb and obsess over our troubles. We draw a shadow from within the shadow. We narrow our vision. We dim our lights. And we do all this because we get so sucked into the vicious stream of our negativity bias, that we begin to attract and pile up more negative thoughts for ourselves… It is our own doing.

Your only job right now is to keep your head above the water.

Your only job right now is to accept what happened—that’s how you override that negativity bias.

Accept where you are. Accept the wave and the damage it has done. Because the sooner you accept what happened to you, the faster you’ll allow yourself to pivot in a more positive direction. And one of the most resolute philosophies that will allow you to practice this acceptance is the Stoic philosophy of Amor Fati.

The love of fate.

Amor Fati is the full acceptance for what occurs to you in your life—for the good and the bad—regardless of whether or not it’s your own doing.

It’s to surrender with devout courage to the flow of life.

As Eckhart Tolle explains in The Power of Now:

“Surrender is the simple but profound wisdom of yielding to rather than opposing the flow of life.”

Amor Fati is what German and Stoic philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche described in his book, The Gay Science, as the art of making ugly things look beautiful:

“I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who makes things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly.”

When the wave of adversity hits, do not wage war on it. Do not kick and scream and fight it. Instead, embrace it. Allow it. Accept it.

It’s hard to do, but it’s necessary.

Don’t waste your time and energy wishing that things could have gone differently. You know what? They could’ve. I’m with you on that. They definitely could’ve gone differently, but they didn’t.

So yield to the flow of life.

That’s the only way you can start thinking straight and taking action.

First, Accept it, And Then, Adapt to it

When the global pandemic hit, we went into a frenzy.

We thought it was the end for us, but of course, it wasn’t.

Perhaps the wave was bigger than usual, and it took a few months longer for it to wash us back ashore, but eventually, it did. Some people arrived with tears in their eyes. Some with bruises to their hearts. Others with shattered financials.

But everyone—everyone—adapted (and continues to adapt).

As Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution tells us, adaptation to novel and changing environments is the way through which one evolves. So when the wave of adversity hits, first, accept it, and then adapt to it.

Ask yourself the questions of what and how.

• What can I learn from this experience?

• How can I make it easier for me to deal with this change?

• How can I spend my energy doing something useful with my time?

• What is one thing I enjoy that I can repeat every day, to serve as my life jacket and keep my head above the water, allow me to grow, and remind me that no matter how hard things get, I am still here, on earth, alive, with oxygen in my lungs and a pounding heart in my chest?

Accept the reality and adapt to it by taking conscious action to work with your adversity and not against it.

First, Accept it, And Then, Adapt to it, So You Can Evolve Through it

After my accident, I spent the entire summer recovering: Six weeks on crutches, a month of physiotherapy treatments to prepare me for knee surgery, after which, two weeks of laying flat on the bed, and then two more months of physiotherapy.

However, it was in the first few days after surgery when I felt really sorry for myself. I felt sorry for this terribly unfortunate incident. For the stroke of bad luck that was struck upon me.

And it was on my third or fourth day that I arrived at the realization that life goes on—that we always have a choice: We can either lean into our new reality and respond to it, or we can simply react to it and do nothing about it.

As per the words of Viktor Frankl:

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

When you react with emotion, nothing changes, you merely survive, but when you respond with action, you create movement, and thus you evolve.

I chose to respond.

So I turned back to that question mentioned above and asked myself:

“What is one thing I enjoy that I can repeat every day, to serve as my life jacket and keep my head above the water, allow me to grow, and remind me that no matter how hard things get, I am still here, on earth, alive, with oxygen in my lungs and a pounding heart in my chest?”

And so, for 30 days, I wrote.

That was what kept me floating with a wavering sense of enthusiasm. That was what helped keep my head above the water: Writing stories, thoughts, and ideas in the form of a 100-page book.

When the wave of adversity hits, first, accept it, and then, adapt to it, so you can evolve through it.

What Matters to You

Let’s revert all the way back to that initial question: “The pandemic has left a lot of people jobless and lost. They’re struggling. What is your message to them?”

My message to you is simple.

1. Accept your adversity. Shit happens and it sucks. Trust me, I know. I lost 60% of my wholesaling accounts with my online eCommerce business because of COVID. Instead of dwelling and resisting, accept it. That’s how you override your negativity bias and thus create less stress and suffering for yourself.

2. Adapt to the situation. Focus only on what you can control and make the positive changes that will allow you to maneuver forward in a healthy mental and emotional state.

3. Evolve through it. Choose one thing you enjoy that you can do every single day that will allow you to grow. When the pandemic hit, I doubled down on writing. I knew my business will not be a sufficient source of income, so I shifted gears and transitioned into writing. My income slowly grew, my narrative skills improved, and so did I mentally evolve through it.

When the wave of adversity hits, let it wash over you.

Soon enough, you will stand back up again. Yes, you will be bruised and in pain, and you will be exhausted, but after every wave (or waves) of adversity, there will always be another much greater wave that will wash over you. That’s the wave of gratitude—a more gentle, kind, and compassionate wave forged by pride and appreciation. It’s a wave that illuminates the truth:

You’ve weathered the storm you never thought you could. It passed and you survived. And now, you’re standing up straight again. The wreckage is evident, the scars are tender, and perhaps the wound still bleeds, but you’re somehow reborn, for the wave of adversity has made you stronger, not weaker. What you so feared and fought early on in your journey has now weaved itself into the very fabric of who you’ve become. What once was insurmountable adversity, has now become your victory story.

And that, my friend, is how you evolve through adversities: You grow more grateful for those struggles, more appreciative of all the little blessings in life, and thus, a more beautiful being because of them.