There’s no rose without a thorn. This thought is absolutely necessary to prepare you to experience less pain and more joy in your journey of life.

人生固然有欢乐，但也一定不乏痛苦。有了这种认识和思想准备也是非常必要的，因为这样会使你的生活增加欢乐而减少痛苦。

With a bird’s-eye view, you may realize something meaningful. During your school years, while joyfully¹ acquiring knowledge you are also under the pressure of homework, examinations, and ranking. You face crises and agony. Meanwhile, all sorts of intricate affairs may happen between you and your classmates. In your youth, puberty may fill you with unrealized desires and send you into deeper perplexity.

鸟瞰人生，可略有领悟。上学时，有获得知识的乐趣，便有做功课、考试、排名次的危机与痛苦。同样，也有同学间相处的融合与纠结。青年时，春心萌动，幻想联翩，难以实现，亦难免陷入困扰。

Entering marriage, you are actually in the center of all the contradictions—the matching of different personalities², enduring of family members, children’s schooling³, financial management and so on, you may also fall into marriage crisis. As you age, your health may deteriorate⁴ and various troubles in your career and family may gradually emerge. Mid-life and old-age crisis will follow, leading you to your eternity⁵.

结婚之后，实际进入了更多的矛盾之中；思想的落差、相处的困难、子女的教育、财务的争执等等，也会陷入婚姻危机。随后，年龄愈大，健康愈差，事业、家庭中的许多潜在矛盾会日益突出，因而又会有中年危机和老年危机，直至步入死亡。

We may therefore conclude that much of our life may not be spent in contentment. However, the things that discontent are, in fact, not useless since you may learn more from them than from the things that cheered you up.

所以说，人生在世，如意的事不足一二，不如意的则十有八九。但这“八九”不是负担，而是有用的，因为人在痛苦中所学到的，要比在欢乐中所学到的多得多。

As the saying goes, “It seems to be a perpetual rule that flops⁶ are produced elatedly and masterpieces painstakingly⁷”. To put it vividly⁸, the great historian Sima Qian had a view even two thousand years ago: “When Emperor Wen of Zhou Dynasty was arrested, he produced the classic Zhou Yi Jing; Confucius wrote the History of Spring and Autumn while he was experiencing adversity; Qu Yuan produced his monumental long poem, On Encountering Sorrow, during his exile. When Zuo Qiu lost his sight and Sun Zi had his feet chopped off, they edited their writings and stratagems⁹. After Lü Buwei was forced to live in Shu, the valuable The Book of Lü was fortunately handed down to posterity¹⁰. Similarly, when Han Feizi was imprisoned¹¹ in Qin, On Difficulty and On Resentment—two precious books—were written by him. Three hundred Classic Poems were also produced in roughly the same way, where the writers’ hearts were smouldering in the doldrums with no way out: they therefore conveyed everything in words, narrating¹² the past and contemplating¹³ the future”.

“自古欢愉酿糟糠，从来痛苦出杰作”。对此，司马迁早在两千多年前便有精彩论述：“盖西伯拘而演《周易》；仲尼厄而作《春秋》；屈原放逐，乃赋《离骚》；左丘失明，厥有《国语》；孙子膑脚，《兵法》修列；不韦迁蜀，世传《吕览》；韩非囚秦，《说难》、《孤愤》；《诗》三百篇，大氐贤圣发愤只所为作也。此人皆有所郁结，不得通其道，故述往事，思来者”。

Let’s treat all the sufferings at every stage of life as assets which can only do us good.

所以，让我们把人生每一阶段上的痛苦，都当做自己的宝贵财富吧。