HIPS: Sometimes setbacks can be a blessing

By Bryan Hyde

Setbacks are a difficult but necessary part of life. 

It’s easy to understand why we don’t welcome them. They are painful. They involve disappointment. They can be humiliating. And they represent a failure to obtain something that we really wanted.

At the same time, a setback can also be one of the greatest things to happen to us if we allow it to be.

First of all, any setback represents someone who had the strength and courage to climb into the arena and to attempt something that wasn’t a sure thing. That’s more than many people are willing to do.

It’s not an excuse to start doubting ourselves. Setbacks teach us that even when we fail at something, that doesn’t mean that we are failures.

Secondly, while a setback may mark the closing of a particular chapter, it also represents the beginning of a new chapter in a story that’s still being written. This means that it can serve as a stepping stone to a better version of ourselves.

A version we wouldn’t have become had everything gone according to plan.

It forces us to grow in ways that can only happen when we push ourselves beyond what we already are.

Ask people who have overcome incredible difficulties about what made them stronger and more capable and many of them will tell you that their greatest blessings showed up, at first, disguised as a setback.

* Hyde In Plain Sight is written by KDXU personality Bryan Hyde. Catch his daily HIPS vignette at 7:50-ish every weekday morning on KDXU and listen to The Bryan Hyde Show weekends at 7 p.m. Saturday and 6 p.m. Sunday nights.