All too often we assume that the good life is about ease. It's the one presented in a million infomercials about how to make money flipping foreclosed properties: living on the speedboat, surrounded by women in bikinis. But there's a lot of research, stretching back at least to Victor Frankl's great Man's Search for Meaning, down to Jennifer Aaker's recent work on the difference between happiness and meaningfulness, that argues that ease is not the point of the good life, and that we should not be afraid of the right kinds of stresses and challenges.

This Martha Graham quote sums it up nicely:

Life deserves and demands everything we can offer, and satisfaction arises, I think, from working very hard to give our all to those things to which we are called.

Through all the struggles, I was grateful always that I was in the right struggle, and I think that is what saved me.