What makes life difficult is also what makes life good. Responsibility, commitment, obligation, discipline, challenge, and effort all can be tough to bear, and all are essential to a life of fulfillment.

Many of the difficulties you experience come from the other people in your life. But what a sad and empty thing your life would be if there were no other people with whom to share your world.

Other difficulties arise from the physical and biological constraints of your existence. Yet that existence itself, and the possibilities it enables, are nothing short of miraculous.

Though you cannot escape the burdens, you never have to let them wear down your spirit. You can greatly mitigate the difficulties by accepting their necessity and by making them well worth their trouble.

Accept each day and everything it brings. Embrace it all with open arms, with the commitment and determination to transform whatever you encounter into positive and purposeful living.

Life’s highest beauty is built upon life’s greatest difficulties. Add something of yourself to that beauty by the way you live today.

— Ralph Marston