Famous Sayings - Why We Need Difficulties In Life

Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health.

-Carl Jung

A quick comment:

Some say this is just an excuse for an idealist to reconcile the reality of difficulties and come to grips with it, all the while still being able to rationalize staying an idealist. But before the realist goes too far, the realist should realize this quote is mainly for him or her to come to grips with their own reality. This is because if we never had it difficult, how would we know the measure of things, what difficulty versus prosperity is?

How would someone who rose like a phoenix from the ashes know they rose from the ashes to new and soaring height, and then be thankful? Let’s go a step further…difficulties not only make us thankful and grateful but they also allow us to become stronger and better people than we thought we were.

The condition is that we rise above the difficulty and keep on moving forward in a positive direction. The way this is necessary for our health is mainly mental health…it’s a sanity check to remind us of what we must be thankful for and content with, and that we don’t ever forget where we came from ad what we have. The moment we lose this, along comes the next difficulty to remind us.

What to do with this famous saying:

Keep a constant attitude of gratitude and contentment. Yet I already hear someone asking, “but how do you reconcile this with strong and ambition?” I ask this because I myself have had and still do often have this very dilemma.

One day I finally figured out that ambition for the right reasons and at a reasonable pace with careful self control can be an ally, as long as one keeps an attitude of contentment nonetheless, every step of the way, and is able to lose it all and say “oh well, that’s the way it goes sometimes” and still be thankful without regret.

If you can at any time lose all material possessions but still be thankful you have life, liberty, freedom, family, friends and your health, even just one of these, then you have something more precious than all the things you had.

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