As C.S. Lewis said,

hardships often prepare ordinary people

for an extraordinary destiny.

People look at their past to decide who they are.

People look at their past to decide who they can be,

but the problem is oftentimes people mistake difficulties,

suffering, pain, for being bad, being less than,

being broken, and it erodes their sense of self-esteem.

It erodes their sense of self-worth.

But nothing could be more opposite from the truth,

because in reality, no matter what you've gone through,

no matter how hard it was, all of it was shaping you

into the person that you can become,

the hardships, the difficulties, the pain,

the suffering, all of that makes you tougher.

It is literally in the difficulties

that you begin to find just how much you're capable of.

It's in the suffering that you find out how resilient you are.

It's in the pain that you can rise up and get tough.

And all of that is going to serve you as you move forward,

but you have to know how to frame it.

You have to know how to think about it.

...