Hard work and trauma are not the same. A good days work should leave you feeling tired, not beaten down & broken.

Pushing into the danger zone leaves you open to getting hurt. Enough doing that, and eventually you will. Avoiding pain and avoiding risk is avoiding life.

> avoiding risk is avoiding life.

True. A life well-lived requires courage. Courage in means risking trauma.

Yet if you don't distinguish between trauma and daily hard work, that sets you up to either:

A. Avoid hard work... possibly while fantasizing about overcoming trauma.

B. Create for yourself a life of trauma. This is not growth. It is just self-harm.

Some are just handed everything they need yet still fail. I started out in life with advantages, although didn't realise it at the time. Went through a series of dead end jobs, a failed business, a few failed relationships, ended up on the street.

My real luck came along when someone gave me a chance to get back on my feet and start afresh with the benefit of all that experience and the knowledge of what can happen. I realised that, previously, I was just unmotivated to do what was necessary to achieve anything in life, I was coasting along and not really trying.

I do OK now, I work hard and make sacrifices, don't waste money and invest all my spare income. Not exactly rocket science, I just wish I had started sooner.