Stronger Through the Struggle

Maybe the setbacks are setting you up for something greater.

For years, parents treated peanuts like poison. Lunchrooms went nut-free, labels were checked twice, and children grew up in a peanutless world—all in the name of protection.

But a new study just published this month shows that rates of peanut allergies have plummeted since doctors began encouraging early exposure. Avoidance, it turns out, wasn’t safety. It was fragility. Strength comes from facing what tests us.

That’s true far beyond the snack aisle. Chief Justice John Roberts once told graduates, “I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice.”

It’s an odd sort of blessing, but a wise one. Comfort may soothe us, but it rarely shapes us. Struggle does.

The people we admire most aren’t those who’ve glided through life unscathed, but those who’ve faced hardship and grown kinder and stronger because of it.

Suffering can certainly break us—but it can also break us open. What we fear might be what forms us.