strength

Thinking again about my friend who's stubbornly headed in the wrong direction ...

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She's a strong person. Very, very strong. Sometimes i wonder if that strength is a kind of desensitisation -- having grown up in a broken home, maybe she's gotten so used to pain and difficulty that she really doesn't realise how bad they are when she encounters them. i've often thought that she has a masochistic streak -- she stays far too long in unhealthy places, telling herself that she's learning important life lessons from them.
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i don't know, really. i agree that staying in a difficult place can be good for the soul. But that's only if there's some kind of duty or obligation to stay, if the reason for staying is a worthy one, if you can be a positive agent in the situation, and if there's some kind of external barrier preventing you from moving away. Otherwise, there really is no need to linger in a place that is hurting you emotionally or spiritually or God forbid, physically. That's foolishness, not wisdom.

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i think that, like most other things, strength can be both good and bad. It enables people to persevere and endure, to triumph over difficulty; but, applied wrongly, without discernment, it can also mean putting up for far too long with things that should not be endured. i think that in this particular instance, the wise thing to do would be to let go, or, in the memorable words of another of her friends, "get her ass out of there". But she's clinging on -- a case of strength misapplied, i think.

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