From a psychological point of view, man is the most developed and most complex creature. And the most controversial. Each of us, to one degree or another, contains traits and qualities that characterize our shortcomings and advantages. And everyone has them. So how do you understand who is a strong person and who is weak?
Strong people are not those who are completely devoid of shortcomings and weaknesses. Not at all. A strong person is not flawless, but he knows how to take control of his life. Including those aspects of character that are weaknesses and obstacles on the path to success and self-realization in life. Unlike them, a weak person is inclined to indulge them, which is why he gets stuck for many years in the whirlwind of a life that is completely alien to him. And qualities, in turn, form habits, which become hooks that keep a person in the comfort zone. What are these habits?
Suffer in inaction
Worrying about what might happen under certain circumstances breeds inaction. But a strong person can curb his anxiety and begin to act according to the plan. While the weak continue to suffer endlessly, without changing anything in life.
A mentally strong person using the example of Mother Teresa
Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, known to the whole world as Mother Teresa, rose every day before dawn, and before starting the next round of the sick, she said a prayer: “Lord Jesus, help me to consider the good of others above mine.
I will try to understand them, and not expect them to understand. I will try to love them, and not expect love from them.” But you can’t call her a stupid fanatic. On the contrary, Mother Teresa was a wise and businesswoman, not without talent, both philosophical and poetic.
Like any skill, mental strength can be trained. I set a certain goal for myself, “trained” myself to overcome various kinds of difficulties - “pumped up the muscles” of my soul. He avoided problems - he brought up a deserter in himself.
OK then. What is the difference between a strong personality and a person who is mentally strong? As mentioned above, a person with a big heart knows how to bear a burden that weighs on the soul so painfully that no anesthesiologist can help. As for strong personalities... Their will manifests itself in confrontation with those like themselves, in the ability to be a little stronger in a frontal attack.
Sacrifice your interests for the interests of other people
Sacrifice is by no means a positive quality, as it might seem at first glance. Just the opposite. If we do not know how to defend our interests, love and respect ourselves, which, again, indicates weakness, we will never be able to give something good to those we love. We simply will not have the internal (and often material) resource for this.
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They need personal time and space.
Such people spend a lot of time supporting and protecting those they care about. That is why a strong but sensitive person sometimes needs to be alone with himself.
There can be so much going on around him that it simply becomes impossible to bear. Such a person needs time to gain strength again. As soon as he recharges, he will again become a support and support for those around him.
Ability to take the right risks
It often seems to others that the owner of fortitude does crazy things. They are convinced of his risk appetite. This person is truly capable of putting a lot on the line, but is guided by strict calculations.
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First, he weighs his expected benefits and possible losses. Then he considers various options for the development of events, including the darkest ones. Only after such an analysis does a person take a risk or refuse it, considering that the game is not worth the candle.
How to become a strong personality?
Every person can find the strength within themselves and overcome weakness of character; all you have to do is use the following tips:
- You should not be afraid to have your own opinion and be able to express it, regardless of whether it is correct or not. You must learn to think independently and allow yourself to make mistakes.
- Instead of constantly complaining, you should find the strength within yourself to solve the problem.
- A person is a unique personality. Therefore, you should not strive to be like someone else.
- You must be able to set specific goals and achieve them, overcoming all life's obstacles along the way. You should never look back.
- There is no need to constantly pour out your emotions. It is necessary to try to strike a balance between the heart and the mind when making important decisions.
Weak person
Weak person:
- complains
- spends most of his time on pointless empty conversations and parties in the virtual space
- loves to plunge into the past and compare the paradise that was before with the hell that fell on his head
- constantly condemns everyone and everything
- surrenders himself to the will of circumstances and others
- makes excuses if something doesn't work out
- gets offended for any reason
- twists and deceives
- doubts
- feels guilty
- worries and worries at the slightest reason and for no reason
- runs away from responsibility, active action, and the search for the meaning of one’s existence
If someone, while reading, found familiar qualities in this list, it means he saw his weakness, which means he took the first step towards gaining strength.
Without realizing that you are weak, it is impossible to be strong
“It’s a difficult time. Mowers." Artist Grigory Myasoedov 1887
It can be difficult for a person reading the New Testament for the first time to understand how the power of God can be accomplished in human weakness. This seems paradoxical and even absurd, but in fact this statement contains the deepest meaning. We know that the words about this - My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9) - were spoken by the Lord to the Apostle Paul. Saint John Chrysostom wrote that Saint Paul was about one and a half meters tall; we also know that he had an illness that caused him inconvenience and suffering - according to some interpreters, purulent conjunctivitis, so severe that his fellow believers were ready to pluck out their eyes and give them to him (see: Gal. 4: 15). And when you imagine a man about five meters tall, with constantly watery eyes, who is beaten with sticks, who fights with some animals, who gets into a shipwreck, who is sent to prison, but nothing can stop him in the work of evangelism that he is doing , it becomes clear how Divine power can appear in weakness.
We all know very well what weakness is. But at the same time, most of us still do not have a sufficient understanding of what human weakness is and the correct attitude towards it, because if it were, then in our weakness the power of God would also constantly be accomplished, and in a completely tangible way. We know and sometimes clearly feel that grace supports each of us in a state of being - just as current feeds an electric light bulb and it shines. Nevertheless, we do not perform any amazing feats like the exploits of the Apostle Paul. What prevents us from transforming weakness into strength?
Weakness – friend or foe?
First of all, it must be said that most of our weaknesses are not just infirmities, but sinful habits that we indulge.
Most of our weaknesses are not infirmities, but sinful habits that we indulge
After the Fall, man’s mind, feelings, and will were damaged, and therefore weak. We can remember many situations when it was difficult for us to overcome ourselves, to force ourselves to do what we should by force of will, when it was not easy for us to restrain ourselves from unnecessary emotions, when it was difficult for us to concentrate our minds on prayer, and not wander during the prayer rule in our imagination throughout the universe . But the point is not in these difficulties, but in how we treat them: most often we are inclined to justify ourselves with this imperfection and weakness of our nature: “Who is without sin? So I act like this sinfully, I am a weak person.” And at the same time, if someone tells such a person that he is in fact weak-willed and weak, this will cause a storm of indignation, since deep down in his soul he does not consider himself such, but only uses it as a tool. And it becomes clear why in this weakness a person does not outgrow himself, why he turns out to be incapable of anything good.
And here we need to talk about what human power is in general. By and large, there are no absolutely strong people in the world: at any moment a person can encounter something beyond his strength, and it turns out that everything in his life was actually very fragile. Moreover, as soon as a person begins to consider himself truly strong, he very often encounters something similar.
I think that true human strength is based on the fact that a person is aware of a certain duty. For a Christian, this is, of course, a Christian duty - the need to act as Christ commanded. If a person believes that the ability to cope with difficult circumstances is simply a certain quality of his, his dignity, then, being defeated, he will be left with emptiness, he will have nothing to rely on, and such a collapse of the idol of his own strength, after which a person cannot recover in any way, we see in life very often. But if a person has a sense of duty, which is greater for him than his weakness, and even greater than his life, at the moment of a difficult trial he turns out to be able to withstand what seemed impossible for him to withstand. This is a universal law, the effect of which we see in the lives of non-believers: in the history of mankind there are many examples when people died for an idea, for their beliefs, which have nothing to do with religion, and in particular with Christianity. But this ability itself goes back to what was inherent in human nature by the Creator: when you stand to the end for something that is more important to you than all earthly goods, you overcome your human weakness.
This can also be said this way: the extent to which a person is ready to overcome his weakness, the stronger he will be. And therefore, without realizing that you are weak, it is impossible to be strong. And you not only need to be aware, but also see your weaknesses, and not fence yourself off from them with illusions.
You need to not only be aware, but also see your weaknesses, and not fence yourself off from them with illusions
We can deal with shortcomings, like real enemies, only if we know them in person. And this, by the way, is another important point: in order to outgrow this or that weakness with God’s help, and learn to act in spite of it, you need to consider it your real enemy. For us, our own weakness is often a familiar neighbor, friend, and sometimes even someone closest and dearest. When a person carries around his weakness like a sack, he has a strange feeling: as if he has some kind of return from this, as if this is the most profitable way for him to live. But in fact, without noticing it himself, he is losing his already small strength. We need to tear away from ourselves our fears, our “I can’t, I don’t want, I won’t”, with which we have grown together, but which are by no means harmless for others and for ourselves - because all this parasitizes on the best in us, prevents us from revealing our inherent in us by God.
Only God knows how far we've come
At the same time, while struggling with his imperfections, making every effort to do so, a Christian must always remember that he himself is just a series of zeros, and, according to the word of St. Paisius the Holy Mountain, only the Lord can attribute a one to them. Attribute at any place in this series and thereby raise us to the value to which he wants: You did not choose Me, but I chose you (John 15: 16). Only when a person understands that he really cannot do anything without God does that knowledge of his weakness begin in him, which becomes a source of strength for him.
Unfortunately, sometimes believers imagine the enemy of our salvation to be too soft. It seems to them that if, when encountering something spiritually threatening, they take a subordinate, inactive position, just as a small dog turns over on its back when attacked by a large dog, the enemy will be touched by this picture and he will weaken his attacks. But no one will be moved - on the contrary, passions will begin to act in us with tenfold force, because our enemy can be satisfied with only one thing - our final destruction.
How can a person achieve, on the one hand, to be active, and on the other, to always be ready, like the Apostle Paul, to say: I will not boast of myself, except in my weaknesses (2 Cor. 12:5)? In fact, there is no contradiction here: as soon as a person takes the path of doing and fulfilling the commandments of the Gospel in his life, he understands how little he can do. This is a life path that is like a treadmill: you go somewhere, walk, get used to the loads and even seem to be ascending from strength to strength, but under your feet there is like a canvas that moves in the opposite direction. You accelerate - and it also accelerates, and only the Lord can appreciate your work, only God knows how far we have actually traveled. Therefore, we cannot judge those around us, how much they have advanced towards God, how much they have done in their spiritual life. The only criterion that is available to us and which we must apply first of all to ourselves is that the correct Christian life is always accomplished with the tension of inner strength. And we can see this: whether a person lives at the limit of his abilities or is somehow cool.
Correct Christian life is always accomplished with effort
Living to the limit of your abilities does not mean, like the ancient ascetics, going without sleep all night, eating stale bread, and mixing ash into hot food, if you happen to eat it. We are talking about our attitude to ordinary, everyday circumstances of life: how caring, cordial, and courageous we turn out to be in them. The Lord knows from which point the path of each of us began, and what is important to Him is not what we achieved, but how painful and difficult it was for us and how much we tried, despite this. And if we remember this, we will neither become discouraged or despair because of our weaknesses, but we will do everything necessary with the hope that the Lord will give us the strength that will compensate for the lack of our own strength.
Strength and weakness - where is the line?
Strength and weakness - where are the boundaries of these concepts?
Is the one who shakes space with kilogram muscles always strong, and is the one who is swayed in the wind so helpless and weak? Where are the criteria for a person’s strength and weakness, who can be safely called a strong person, and who in comparison is better to delicately leave “behind the scenes”? Who is a weak and a strong person?
Become taller, stronger, more authoritative, more beautiful, richer, healthier, more confident, more successful? – It’s tempting, isn’t it? Then why does the overwhelming majority of erect walkers prefer to envy those who already have these advantages and do not close the distance to their ideal? Is the distance really that great between a successful person and a loser, a healthy handsome man and a sickly pale weakling, a financially independent person and someone who is used to “living on credit”? To answer these questions, let's try to figure out who is a weak and a strong person?
