After days of increasing pain, my roommate Paul finally went to an emergency dentist yesterday.  He came back after an unexpected root canal.  Today he mentioned, “I feel great!”  Although his pain level is still pretty high, “in comparison to how it was,” he feels amazing!

Here are Mark Twain’s thoughts in this regard:

“What is joy without sorrow? What is success without failure? What is a win without a loss? What is health without illness? You have to experience each if you are to appreciate the other. There is always going to be suffering. It’s how you look at your suffering, how you deal with it, that will define you.”

I heard HWN today through Paul’s reminder that we need sorrow to feel joy.

p.s. Unrelated, but how about this gem from Disney’s The Muppets! I watched it for the first time tonight :)

“You always believe in other people, but that’s easy. Sooner or later, you gotta believe in yourself, too, because that’s what growing up is. It’s becoming who you want to be. You have to try.”