15 Inspiring Quote Tattoos For Those Who Have Endured And Overcome Hard Times

There is no way to avoid them. Hard times have and will come more than once. They show up in our lives, at any age, and could be foreseen or arrive unexpectedly. We might be prepared to face some of these situations, while others, the unexpected kind, test our ability to endure and overcome. We might not be ready, but that’s how life works: it gives the toughest tests to the bravest soldiers. The scars that remain are part of our achievements, relics of that which made us stronger. Tattoos tell that story: “some of us like to write our histories on our skin,” writes Christina Theisen for The Guardian in her article about women and tattoos.

Getting a tattoo after going through a difficult time is a great way to open up about something rough you have experienced. Sometimes, a tattoo is a physical reclamation of a situation, a means to embrace the scar as well as the event. Gabe Crenshaw (a lecturer at the School of Social Work) stated to the University of Southern California News that some people get tattoos because they want to “find closure, a new beginning, a paradigm shift and want to memorialize that on their bodies.” Wisdom comes after the struggle, so here we present a compilation of quote tattoos that serve as symbols of these tales of endurance and overcoming.

I once learned that events have no real meaning of their own, and that we, through the exercise of reasoning, can give any significance we want to them. Some moments can feel like the toughest lessons ever, yet we can choose whether we let ourselves down and play the victim, or do something about it and create new paradigms, so we can learn and grow from the experience. I know that looking for silver linings sounds a little too Pollyanna, but we do have the chance to give meaning to events in our lives: it’s never about “good” or “bad” but a matter of perspective, since we can give any experience the opportunity to teach, enrich and strengthen us.

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