[Aurel]

Originally Posted by LeeH

Your situation is inconvenient and expensive. THIS is a hellish nightmare: http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/420757-my-4-yr-old-has-cancer.html
Sometimes when I THINK I'm having a bad day I pull up that thread and read it through. Suddenly life doesn't seem so bad.

I totally agree with you, and certainly the thread title was poorly chosen, simply reflecting my state of mind at a given moment. We can always find better or worse situations than ours, and what really matters is not the situation itself but how we deal with it, the journey it takes us through.

Interestingly though, I have noticed that we usually receive challenges that push our limits just enough that we can go through them, as if there was a predetermined set of challenges required for our growth.

I have also noticed that happiness as little to do with those circumstances, and that is probably the part that is most difficult to grasp. For instance, a study on suicide revealed some tribes in Africa have 75% rate of infant mortality and 0% rate of suicide, while the rate of suicide is much higher in developed countries, and seems to increase with wealth.

Thanks again for all the advice and opinions.