I think often about how the struggles we face in life shape how we live it.

I struggled a lot when I was much younger with finding a job and finding my niche. Of course this was depressing, confidence-shaking and worrisome. This has turned me into a workaholic machine, someone who cannot say no or create a good work-life balance (I’m getting there), someone who is always at the edge of paranoid, looking for the “writing on the wall” about corporate instability or shakeups and always prepared for these things. It means that I am always ready, never blindsided and know – thanks to the long struggle – that I am always going to land on my feet.

I am thankful for that. And thankful for where I have landed.

But I also feel thankful now for the struggle. I consider the question frequently now: What if, years ago, I had found an ‘Oh, I guess I can live with this’ existence/job and had gotten stuck where I was? And then never realized the bigger dreams or followed the more interesting and challenging path(s) I followed, such as moving far away and looking for freedom in everything I do?

It is the struggle that propels me forward – both because and in spite of the discomfort.