We often speak of a man who's done this successfully as a "self-made man." The appellation is usually spoken with a sense of admiration, but really it should be said in the same tones we might use of the dearly departed, or of a man who recently lost an arm—with sadness and regret. What the term really means is "an orphaned man who figured how to master some part of life on his own.

The trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is that the same steel that secures your life against being destroyed secures your life also against being opened up and transformed. (The Sacred Journey) Only when we enter our wound will we discover our true glory.

Do not pray for easy lives my friends, pray to be stronger man!

Do not pray for easy times, pray to be stronger. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers, pray for powers equal to your tasks.

But this is human life: the war, the deeds, The disappointment, the anxiety, Imagination's struggles, far and nigh, All human; bearing in themselves this good, That they are still the air, the subtle food, To make us feel existence. -Keats, Endymion This is the 'goal' of the soul path — to feel existence; not to overcome life's struggles and anxieties, but to know life first hand, to exist fully in context. (Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul, p.260)

People don't really know whether they are committed to something until they face adversity.

Is it true, O Christ in heaven, that the highest suffer the most? That the strongest wander furthest and most hopelessly are lost? That the mark of rank in nature is capacity for pain? That the anguish of the singer makes the sweetness of the strain?

To be weak is miserable, Doing or suffering.

All great spirituality is about what we do with our pain. If we do not transform our pain, we will transmit it to those around us.

The foundation of all mental illness is the unwillingness to experience legitimate suffering.

We cannot afford to forget any experience, not even the most painful.

You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, the encountering may be the very experience which creates the vitality and the power to endure.