Riding the Waves: Why Adversity Is Fun

When we trip, sweat, and stumble our way up a mountain, something wild happens inside us—we come alive. The trail gets rough, our legs burn, and the mind protests, but then—bam! A spark of laughter slips through the grit. Suddenly, we’re not just surviving the climb; we’re playing in it.

The highest forms of adversity are the ultimate invitation to the playground. Ram Dass calls this, from the Hindu tradition, Lila—divine play. We’re here, he said, to play with this. To embrace the obstacles. To meet each one like it’s an old friend who won’t let us rest until we’ve leveled up.

Einstein hinted at the same beautiful paradox when he said, “You never truly know your limits until you’ve gone beyond them.” And what a thrilling experience it is to venture beyond that boundary! To test the terrain of our own strength, curiosity, and courage—and find that, every single time, we are capable of more than we believed.

The Playground: Lila

Ram Dass describes this Lila as life playing itself through all of us. It’s the wink and nod. The trickster behind life’s misdirections and levers. The moment when things get real confusing, tough, challenging—that’s when you know the universe is inviting you to play.

When we take life too seriously, we forget it’s a playground. We become serious about something trivial. We’ve turned life into an exam we can fail.

When we see adversity as part of the play, that shifts. Adversity becomes part of the joy, part of the growth. When things go wonky, we stop for a minute. Listen. Stay present to what’s happening. Instead of pushing it away, poking it, tugging at it, ahh…we play with it.

We start to see the play in every patch of bad luck or testing ground. The universe invites us to play with the hand it’s dealt by slipping us a wink with every failed expectation. The hurricane, the missed connection, the illness, the heartbreak.

All it’s saying is: This is the level. This is the challenge. This is the obstacle. Are you in? It’s that simple.

Nature has a good handle on the game. Sit with the ocean for a while and you’ll begin to see this. One minute it’s all calm ripples. The next minute? Full of dancing! It’s the cyclone of joy! Whooshing. Spinning. It’s violent delight. The sea doesn’t rage against the storm; it is the storm.

We are also the storm. The wave surges, swells, rises, crests, crashes. It breaks and folds and returns back to itself in an ancient dance that is unruffled, unbroken, unbothered, free. You and me, we are made of that same tide. We rise and fall, fall and rise again and again. Learning to laugh in between the waves.

Ram Dass reminds us,

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“The resistance to the disturbance is the disturbance.”

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When we stop fighting what’s uncomfortable and adversarial, we get to flow with it. We get to see that the wave isn’t here to wipe us out. It’s here to teach us how to surf.

Pushing the Boundaries

Albert Einstein once said, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” To surpass the challenge is to be invited into a place where our old thinking can’t go.

The soft shell of who we are cracks and breaks open and, out of the shuck, a new version of us gets to step forward. Wet and drippy, salt stingy, and laughing.

There is a sweet triumph in going beyond what feels doable. When we push beyond the line we’re told to not cross, what’s there? We meet a version of who we never knew existed.

The trail runner who hits mile twenty. The painter who keeps getting rejected. The surfer out past their depth who wipes out one hundred times before that one magical glide. These are the times that push us until that little voice inside us says, Whaddya know? We’ve got this.

It’s that little voice. Quiet. Steady. Electric. It’s the one that won’t let go. Because the fun isn’t in the easy stuff. The fun is in the other thing. The thing that asks us for more of ourselves.

The sea doesn’t stop making waves, so we can’t stop showing up to surf.

All Play, No Rules

The moment we stop believing struggle is a bad thing, the whole universe opens up to play. The mountain becomes a dance partner, not a villain. The sea, something to ride, not brace against.

Oh, the joy of realizing we’re made for this. That we can do hard things. That we can fall and rise laughing. That the tempest can throw us, hurl us, spin us, whip us like a rag doll and we will find a way to pop right up and ask for more.

When we open to adversity as play, we can walk through the world with a lighter step, a brighter grin, a salty and sun-crusted soul that says, Let’s play. Bring it on. All in. Bring it.

Painting Rainbows and Adversity

Life doesn’t hand us rainbows; we paint them ourselves.

We’re the artists in our story. The makers of meaning. When we let ourselves play with the test, the jam, the ugly mess, we move through it with lighter feet, with humor and heart and grit and adaptability. It’s no longer survival or futility; it’s making the best of the hand we’ve been dealt.

And then surpassing it.

And isn’t that what we came to play this game for in the first place?

Cheers!

Kether

Spunky Mind

“Let the waves throw you, spin you, shake you

—and when you rise, rise laughing.”

 — Spunky Mind

Spunky Mind Field Notes—

Riding the Waves

Nature Insight—Mountains don’t test you to break you—they test you to tease you. Waves don’t crash to punish; they crash to play. The universe tosses obstacles like dodgeballs and winks, “Your turn.” Every challenge is just Lila—the cosmic playground—inviting you to laugh while leveling up.

Trail Wisdom—When life gets wild, don’t stiffen… surf it. The resistance is the disturbance. Loosen your grip, bend your knees, and let the storm toss you into your next version of yourself—with grit, humor, and a slightly salty grin.

Pockets of Nature Practice

• Step outside and notice one wild, moving element—wind, wave, cloud, leaf.

• Imagine it’s inviting you to play, not punish.

• Let your breath match its rhythm for a few seconds.

• Feel your body soften into curiosity instead of resistance.

• Carry that playful resilience into the next “hard thing” on your list.

  
  

Field Note Prompt—Where in my life can I treat adversity less like a battle and more like a cosmic game inviting me to rise laughing?

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