The hardships of Life as well as its joys...

To grow old means merely to age. To grow up means to become better, wiser, and more intelligent in dealing with the same or similar problems. You can grow old, or you can grow up. It is really up to you. Physically, every one of us in the course of time reaches his limit, but mentally and emotionally and spiritually no one can tell where the bounds are. There are some who pray nightly, “Oh God, keep life’s difficulties from my door. Lead me not into temptation.” It is very doubtful if you can ever attain any secure happiness ‘by running away from temptation, pain, disappointment, disillusionment, or hardship. These things must be faced in each of our lives. What we need is not freedom from difficulties or temptation, but a serene fortitude in the face of disappointment and hardship. If you evade all unpleasantness in your life, your happiness is placed in a very unstable equilibrium by the constant dread that some disappointment is just around the corner. If you have faced pain and disappointment, then not only will you value your happiness more highly, but you are better prepared to meet and handle the next stumbling block in the road of life. There may be human vegetables that have succeeded in avoiding unhappiness and pain, but they cannot be called mature personalities. A mature personality expects and is ready for the hardships of life, as well as its joys. This type of person may become depress when things don’t go right, but they don’t lose there sense of values.