The Meaning of Adversity The theme of second unit of our Chinese textbook for this semester is "confronting the adversity", and there is a acticle named "One Prospers in Worries and Hardships, and Perishes in Ease and Comfort" written in classical Chinese by Mencius, a philosopher who lived in over 2000 years ago, was regarded as the second sage after the Confucius in Chinese traditional culture. I learned this very article many years ago and still can recite it without thinking. In this article, Mencius began with several famous examples sharing a common plot that a humble person was promoted as a person of power from a unpromising environment, for instance, a shepherd named Bailixi was appointed as a prime minister of Qin State in the slave market. After that ,Mencius concluded that a person destined to make great achievement must suffer great pains both physically and mentally before he succeed, and the adversity is unavoiable.That is, it is the adversity those people had gone through that helped them to fulfill those formidable task by stimulating their spirit, toughening their nature and enhancing their ability.