Zheng Xinqi, Class 13, Senior 2, Shenzhen Xin’an Middle School Instructed by Tang Ying

As we all know, the kind of environment a person is in has a great influence on him. In fact, adversity is not the same as despair, but is just a bad situation in which a person is suffering from setbacks. Growing up is the physical and psychological experience of maturing. I support that it is good for people to grow up in adverse circumstances.

First of all, I think adverse circumstances can strengthen people’s abilities. In adversity, there is competition, difficulty, and oppression. It is better to tell a person about their weaknesses than about their strengths. What’s more, living in adversity is more conducive to the development of a person’s ability to take responsibility and resist temptation. Everyone has heard of the saying, “Failure is the mother of success.” People, who face challenges over and over again under the setbacks brought by adversity can continue to accumulate experience constantly. It’s like when you get sick to get antibiotics. For example, the famous scientist Thomas Edison did more than 10,000 experiments to create a simple light bulb. When someone asked how he managed to get the right solution, Edison said, “I’ve had 10,000 results and I’ve learned more than 10,000 lessons.”

Secondly, adverse circumstances can temper a person’s mind. The majority of people who grow up smoothly and meet few setbacks, which causes them to face hardships inefficiently and have poor psychological ability in dealing with setbacks.

Many people make the extreme choice to commit suicide because of their psychological problems. It has caused family tragedies which are heartbreaking for everyone. How sad the family members are. How sad we feel for them. What a social problem. However, adverse circumstances which force people out of their comfort zone put them in a desperate position, which makes them realize their shortcomings and perfect themselves.

Finally, in my opinion, adverse environments are good for making people into strong people. As the old saying goes: “Adversity reveals genius while fortune conceals it.” It is through the hardships of circumstances in adversity that fully shows the abilities of talents. You can see that adversity is a process of screening and filtering. If you want to reach a certain height, you must experience these adversities and withstand the hardships of screening, filtering and testing. If you can’t withstand those tests, you will never grow up. You may never achieve your goals.

To sum up, I strongly believe that adverse circumstances are good for people as they grow up because they can strengthen people’s abilities, temper their minds and make people strong.