Eat bitter
The Chinese have an expression called chi ku (吃苦) which literally translates to eat bitter or bear hardship. It is a metaphor used to describe the suffering of a person, a people or even a country. It is equally apt to use it to describe the historical or present-day collective injustice endured by those discriminated and marginalized. And while as parents, we will do everything in our power to ensure our precious daughters be freed from undue hardship, it is also wise not to filter out the meaningful struggles that can become important life lessons unto itself.
Continuing with the metaphors, it is true that fish do not swim in distilled waters. And children who are not exposed to challenges will not be able to demonstrate creativity in solving problems, since without struggle there can be no growth. As our children are growing up to accept greater responsibilities, how can we manufacture difficulties as a way to prepare them for the world—not when things are going well, but when things do not? Well, we do so by letting them know the taste of bitterness.
Bitterness of rejection. Michael Jordan is one of the most famous basketball player of all times and yet when he tried out for the varsity team during his sophomore year, he was deemed too short to play! He’s obviously grown in height, and he never gave up. It’s important for children to experience rejection and feel all the associated emotions that goes along with it but equally important is for them to know that ‘not now’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘not ever.’ Resilience means the depths of despair is unmatched by the height of hopefulness.
It’s important for children to know that ‘not now’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘not ever.’ Taking nothing for granted, hardship will teach them to take deliberate and measured steps toward something better. And there will be.
Bitterness of difficulty. Oprah Winfrey is known to millions for her award-winning talk show and is ranked one of the most influential African Americans today. But born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a teenage single-mom, racism was difficult to escape. She was also a sexual abuse victim at 9 years-old. After years of trauma, she was pregnant at 14 and gave birth to a premature son who died shortly. She pressed on. She was a good orator, won contests and through hard work and staying at school, she secured full scholarship at Tennessee State University. One of her first jobs was a part-time news announcer for a local black radio station. Oprah’s skills in public speaking gave her much success. In her words, one builds up a lot of tolerance when society continues to erode your perseverance.
Bitterness of failure. Albert Einstein’s early teachers found him not especially talented and even failed the entrance exam to the Zurich Polytechnic. Desperately trying to find work after graduation, he realized that in 1900, no one was hiring a math and physics teacher. Eventually, he got a job at the Patent Office. His exposure to patent filings and recurring questions on transmission of electrical signals spawn ideas that no one had thought. His inquisitiveness eventually led him to unorthodox conclusions on the nature of light and the relationship between space and time. Among the unanswered questions Einstein had left behind after his death were his mathematical errors on the cosmological constant, the indeterminism of the universe and even the existence of black holes. Decades later, much of his equations were confirmed to be valid and foretelling. Even posthumously, his humble calculations continue to underpin much of our understanding in the way the universe works.
With only three personalities profiled, it is abundantly clear that even so few can teach so much. Each overcame their hardship by pursuing what they believed in: themselves. Their common character trait is that they took nothing for granted; hardship has taught them to take deliberate and measured steps toward their belief of something better. There must be. There will be. It’s a journey without end. Clearly eating bitter has sweet rewards. Some may even describe that without knowing one, you cannot know the other.
