A young family member called me and was upset over the way her child was treated by another group of four and five-year-olds.
They didn't really jump him or anything like that. It was just that they treated him like an outsider. They didn't include him in the group and didn't play with him. And I guess it was kind of a new experience for him. It was probably like experiences many of us had while growing up. Painful and uncomfortable and feeling like a loser.
Yet, I didn't think this was necessarily a bad thing for the boy. He's a kid who has a lot of personality and energy and usually makes friends quite easily and mostly gets his way. It was likely a shock that he found himself being treated that way.
My belief is that opposition of any kind makes us stronger and more resilient. If we have everything handed to us and have no opposition as we're maturing when we do run into something tough we might not be able to handle it too well.
In fact, I think that's about the time I began dabbling in drugs and alcohol and crime. I wanted to belong and be accepted and would go to any measures to achieve that acceptance. I fell in with low companions and little thugs like myself and whatever drugs they had or crimes they plotted I was right in the middle because I wanted to belong.
Once I got sober, though, all that changed and I realized that not everyone was going to like or accept me. And by that point, I'd been through enough negative experiences and had toughened up enough where what others thought didn't make a hill of beans.
Tough experiences can make us tougher and stronger and should be looked upon positively.
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