There is someone who lives about 200 miles away who has become a good friend over the last five years.  The common ground for us has been our struggles with life including depression, broken marriages, shame and regret.  When I hit my crisis point in 2007 she encouraged me, often emailed and sometimes called to see how I was and generally gave me support.  Now it is my turn.  Through the lessons of difficulty she is potentially at a new starting point.  Great discomfort can encourage a person to change and open the gateway to growth.  My pain was the catalyst for my growth and I hope hers can be turned into a positive force in a similar manner.   
   
In this current period of difficulty she has come face to face with herself and her past and truly wants to grow beyond it all.  She reached out for advice in an email last evening and what I sent her were some borrowed words below from the book “The Road less Traveled” written by psychiatrist, M. Scott Peck, M.D.

Life is difficult.  This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths.  It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it.  Once we truly know that life is difficult – once we truly understand and accept it – then life is not longer difficult.  Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.
 
Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult.  Instead they moan more or less incessantly, notably or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy.  They voice their belief noisily or subtly that their difficulties represent a unique kind of affliction that should not be and that has somehow been especially visited upon them…
 
Yet it is in this whole process of meeting… problems that life has its meaning.  Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed, they create our courage and wisdom.  It is because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually.  When we desire to encourage the growth of the human spirit, we challenge and encourage the human capacity to solve problems, just as in school we deliberately set problems for our children to solve.  It is through the pain of confronting and resolving problems that we learn.  As Benjamin Franklin said, “Those things that hurt, instruct”. 
 
…when we avoid the legitimate suffering that results from dealing with problems, we also avoid the growth that problems demand from us.  It is for this reason that in chronic mental illness we stop growing, we become stuck.  And without healing, the human spirit begins to shrivel.
 
 Problems do not go away.  They must be worked thorough or else they remain, forever a barrier to the growth and development of the spirit.  We must accept responsibility for a problem before we can solve it. 
 
Self-discipline is a self-enlarging process. 
 
What are these tools… these means of experiencing the pain of problems constructively that I call discipline?  There are four: delaying of gratification, acceptance of responsibly, dedication to truth and balancing.  

Delaying of gratification is a process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with.  It is the only decent way to live.  

We cannot solve life’s problems except by solving them.  …we must accept responsibility for a problem before we can solve it.  We cannot solve a problem by saying “It’s not my problem.”  We cannot solve a problem by hoping that someone else will solve it for us.  I can solve a problem only when I say “This is my problem and it’s up to me to solve it.” (You can only solve YOUR problems.  You can not solve a problem that belongs to someone else). 

Truth is reality.  Our view of reality is like a map with which to negotiate the terrain of life.  If the map is true and accurate, we will generally know where we are and if we have decided where we want to go, we will generally know how to get there.  If the way is false and inaccurate, we generally will be lost. 

Balancing is the discipline that gives us flexibility.  The essence of this discipline of balance is “giving up”.  …as we negotiate the curves and corners of our lives, we must continually give up parts of ourselves. …personality traits, well-established patterns of behavior, ideologies and even whole life styles. 

Dr. Peck’s book was good reading when I first got through it a decade ago.  Now down the road in my growth his words speak to me much more strongly now.  I am grateful for the help I received from Dr. Peck through his book and thankful now I can offer a little of its wisdom to someone I care about.

You can’t run away from trouble.  There ain’t no place that far.  Uncle Remus