Who Would You Be without Life’s Struggles

by Marcelino Rapayla Jr.

As I looked over my life, appreciating the person I am and the gifts that I have, something

occurred to me. I don’t give full credit where credit is due. Yes, I give thanks for the

pleasurable, comforting and rewarding experiences of my life. But I forget that I owe much of

my thanks to something totally different life’s struggles. Within moments, I asked and answered

one of my biggest life questions, “Why do we suffer?” I am the person who I am today, not

because I had a perfect childhood or the most supportive friends, but because that wasn’t always

so. In fact, believed it or not I had been a scavenger once and ate some food threw in the

garbage. I am the person who I am today, not because I’ve always trusted the right people and

made the right decisions, but because I sometimes screwed up.

Life’s struggles teach life lessons. Most of what I’ve come to appreciate about myself did not

develop because life has always been good to me. It’s quite the opposite. Because of my own

life’s struggles, I learned to be optimistic in life.

For me, as for everyone, life has been a complex mix of experiences. Some days have been like

a walk in the park, while other days felt like an uphill run on a rocky road. But every bit of this

has helped to define the person I am.

If you’ve ever wondered why we must endure life’s struggles, consider this: Our struggles, and

the way we deal with them, are among the many gifts that shape our lives. If we can find it in

our hearts to replace resentment, frustration, and anger with appreciation for life’s struggles, we

can heal emotional scars and reach the epitome of self improvement success.

Life’s struggles build character. As Henri Frederic said, “You desire to know the art of living,

my friend? It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering.” My brothers and sister, I would

like to end this article by with you a story of the cocoon which will explain much enough why

life’s struggles are sometimes important. A man found a cocoon of an emperor moth. He took it home so that he could watch the moth

come out of the cocoon. On the day a small opening appeared, he sat and watched the moth for

several hours as the moth struggled to force the body through that little hole.

The moth seemed to be stuck and appeared to have stopped making progress. It seemed as if it

had gotten as far as it could and it could go no farther. The man, in his kindness, decided to help

the moth; so he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The moth

then emerged easily. But its body was swollen and small, its wings wrinkled and shriveled. The

man continued to watch the moth because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would

enlarge and expand to and able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither

happened! In fact, the little moth spent the rest of its life crawling around with a small, swollen

body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.

The man in his kindness and haste did not understand that the struggle required for the moth to

get through the tiny opening was necessary to force fluid from the body of the moth into its

wings so that it would be ready for flight upon achieving its freedom from the cocoon. Freedom

and flight would only come after the struggle. By depriving the moth of a struggle, he deprived

the moth of health.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If we were to go through our life

without any obstacles, we would be crippled. We would not be as strong as what we could have

been. Give every opportunity a chance, leave no room for regrets, and don’t forget the power in

the struggle.