The challenge is the training, and the training is the challenge. In any area we wish to improve, we must push ourselves past what we are comfortable with in the taking on of something difficult, this trains us to better handle the situation or area of expertise or attribute in our next encounter with it / implementation of it. Reversely, when something challenging occurs, we rely on our past training to overcome it.

We must first endeavor to find what it is we wish to become, what traits we wish to embody, what skills we want to improve, what virtues we wish to display. We must establish a value system (Value System Instantiation). While this is inherent in us all, it is useful to our progression in any individual value (meaningful phenomena), to philosophically examine our current value structure, find the truth of what ours currently is (or at least a conceptualization of part of it) and work to philosophically expound aims in order to providing values which we can justify and prioritize.

Philosophy is crucial to our psychological wellbeing, and having a framework of values that we can explicitly expound, makes it easier to pursue them consciously, and look for ways to direct our being towards their attainment. Without this type of consciously directed approach to pursuing values, we will continue down a haphazard unconscious approach of unknowingly improving in whatever areas might present themselves to us, or pursuing the value structure currently purported in our given culture / DNA.

If it is philosophy and martial arts, we must consciously direct ourselves to read / write / think philosophy, we must direct our body to improve strength and endurance and technique in gyms. For virtues such as compassion and courage and stability, or to be able to be okay in tough situations, for the benefit of others, we must push ourselves to embody these virtues, especially when they are hardest to display. In this way the challenges become the training, and the benefit from manifesting such traits becomes habitualized, improved, and internalized (unconsciously assimilated), through their execution.

For example, a crisis in life, the loss of a loved one. If we wish to be strong, and we wish to be calm and compassionate for other family members, we can practice this during the crisis, by embodying it. This is optimized through past acceptance of difficult situations, past overcoming of deep emotional loss, philosophical understanding of the possibility of such crisis happening (preparedness). Thus if we had trained for the loss, and when it happens, we embody the virtues we have previously accepted as being most beneficial in the situation, we are able to consciously direct ourselves towards their manifestation, as well as unconsciously draw upon our past, in terms of experience, psychological training, past habitualization, so that the perceived difficult situation becomes something we can actively overcome. Not overcome as in time passes and we get through the loss, but overcome in the most virtuous way possible, with strength and compassion, without allowing ourselves to slip into turmoil or unwholesome behavior, but on the contrary, we can show fortitude and reverence for the loved ones, console others who are suffering at a deeper level than us (who aren’t as prepared or don’t have the same experience / ability to overcome). By doing this not only are we doing good, by reducing the suffering of others, but we find our own suffering reduced within the present moment, and are actively setting ourselves up for future improvement through training the virtues we wish to embody. The challenge in the moment itself becomes experience, becomes a positive habit, itself becomes a part of us, and a good part, in that it is training us for next time, it will reinforce what we have previously decided was optimal, and allows for further growth, strength of character, and conscious wellbeing in future situations that arise.