Class Assignment - Quickwrite - When the going gets tough, the tough gets going

The saying "When the going gets tough, the tough gets going" means that when a situation gets bad, the person in the dilemma becomes tough, and 'gets going' meaning takes action. I think when a person is stuck in a difficult situation, they feel the urge to jump out of it, so they start to 'think outside the box' and do things they wouldn't expect. That's how some people have the strength to face problems, through experience with difficult times. A teacher once pointed out to me, if you compare someone in a place, say Ghana, and someone from the USA, they would probably be really different on their attitudes while facing hard times. In Ghana, infant mortality rates are higher, and more mothers lose their children, whereas someone in the USA have less chance of losing a child. So when a mother in Ghana loses her child, she is more likely to get back up again and face the situation, because she knows she has other things to deal with, like poverty. But when someone in the USA loses a child, it is more likely the person would sink into deep depression, etc. So I think another thing that counts for courage to face difficult situations is the place and condition the person was born in.
But I think sometimes, the person is driven by some kind of subconcious motivation, like a mother instinct to protect a child. The hard condition threatens and pushes out an inner character out from the person.