What Suffering Does
This picture taken on March 7, 2014 shows a woman crying as she mourns at the scene of the terror attack at the main train station in Kunming, southwest China's Yunnan province. Attackers who launched a brutal mass knifing at a Chinese train station acted in desperation after a failed attempt to leave the country and become jihadists overseas, a Chinese official was quoted as saying on March 12. Both Beijing and Washington have described the attack in Kunming which killed 29 people and injured 143 as terrorism. CHINA OUT AFP PHOTO (Photo credit should read STR/AFP/Getty Images)
This picture taken on March 7, 2014 shows a woman crying as she mourns at the scene of the terror attack at the main train station in Kunming, southwest China's Yunnan province. Attackers who launched a brutal mass knifing at a Chinese train station acted in desperation after a failed attempt to leave the country and become jihadists overseas, a Chinese official was quoted as saying on March 12. Both Beijing and Washington have described the attack in Kunming which killed 29 people and injured 143 as terrorism. CHINA OUT AFP PHOTO (Photo credit should read STR/AFP/Getty Images)

Over the past few weeks, I’ve found myself in a bunch of conversations in which the unspoken assumption was that the main goal of life is to maximize happiness. That’s normal. When people plan for the future, they often talk about all the good times and good experiences they hope to have. We live in a culture awash in talk about happiness. In one three-month period last year, more than 1,000 books were released on Amazon on that subject.

But notice this phenomenon. When people remember the past, they don’t only talk about happiness. It is often the ordeals that seem most significant. People shoot for happiness but feel formed through suffering.

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