Imagine how you’d feel if your whole life turned into a job you couldn’t stand.

Find value in what we've been taught is worthless.

Without pain, without sacrifice we would have nothing. Like the first monkey shot into space.

This is why I loved the support groups so much, if people thought you were dying, they gave you their full attention. If this might be the last time they saw you, they really saw you. Everything else about their checkbook balance and radio songs and messy hair went out the window. You had their full attention. People listened instead of just waiting for their turn to speak. And when they spoke, they weren't just telling you a story. When the two of you talked, you were building something, and afterward you were both different than before.

Are these things really better than the things I already have? Or am I just trained to be dissatisfied with what I have now?

We have pain and hate and love and joy and war in the world because we want them.

A good story isn't the one that shuts everyone down and sort of leaves them in silent awe. A good story is one that, even before you finish the anecdote, you can see their eyes shining because it has so resonated with something from their own lives that everyone in the group has a version of the same story and they cannot wait to tell it, and that they're going to compete to make their version even more extreme than your version. So your version is just a seed.