Adversity Research Paper

As the Roman poet Horace once said, "adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant." In other words, he believed that challenges are beneficial because they bring out talents that would have stayed hidden otherwise. He thought that adversity would force a person to use their unknown talents out of desperation. Some argue that his theory is irrelevant and that a person 's skills will develop just as well without adversity if they have the capacity, but I believe that hardships will evoke and improve on their dormant talents. For example, Stephen Hawking, one of the world 's leading physicists, was diagnosed with ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, when he was 21 years old. The

She grew up on a large plantation in Georgia with all of the luxuries anyone could ask for. Her mother managed the house and her father provided the money; her biggest worry was that Ashley didn 't requite her love. However, her world changed when the Civil War left her carefree life in tatters. Her mother died typhoid, her father lost his will to live after her mother died, the plantation lay in ruins, all the slaves had been freed, and she was left penniless and burdened with the responsibility of taking care of her cowardly son Wade, Melanie (a sick friend), Melanie 's newborn baby Beau, her two little sisters, and her dispirited father. She quickly realized that she had to drastically change her way of living in order to survive. She took charge and made everyone work in the fields, something only slaves did before the war. She, herself, bought a lumber mill and became a shrewd business woman who would sell bad lumber at a good price to unsuspecting customers if she thought she could get away it it. She learned how to budget and cook and take care of the house to ensure their survival. Without the Civil War destroying her old way of life, it would not have been necessary for Scarlett to become a leader. The hardships she faced during and after the war forced her to take a position as the head of the family in order to endure. The death of her mother meant that she had to take over as