There's no way to a life without negativity. No matter what you do, no
matter how carefully you plan, no matter what anyone else tells you, you
can't avoid problems, disappointments, and sadness. These things are just too
prevalent in the world for anyone to avoid them for a lifetime, or even to
plan such that you can anticipate all of them.
  Although some people might not believe it, you can't altogether avoid the
opposite, either. Some people believe that life is destined to be nothing but
drudgery and misery, but the truth is that no one can escape moments of joy
or euphoria, even if it's caused by nothing more than relief. Some people
feel that the greatest feeling of happiness is not caused by the attainment
of "good" things, but rather by the removal of "bad" things. This is part of
why some people fall into self-mutilation, deliberately cutting or otherwise
physically harming themselves: It feels so good to stop.
  Many people seem to wish that they could leave all their problems behind
and enter into a life where they never have to face negativity again. As I've
gotten older, however, I've come to realize a fundamental truth about our
human existence: People need hard times. There's just no way around it.
  Only by experiencing hardship can people appreciate prosperity. This can be
clearly seen in people who have had relatively privileged lives: They think
of happiness and luxury as the natural condition of life, not realizing how
fortunate they are to experience the things they have. You can tell someone
they're lucky, you can tell them about the difficult times people have had
throughout history, you can show them historical movies about wars and
disasters and the like, but it's not the same thing as going through those
things yourself. Only by actually experiencing them does someone truly
appreciate what both sides of life are like.
  I think most people understand this intuitively; young people are generally
told this several times growing up, but it's not enough to just be told. You
have to experience it personally, and everybody has their own moment in which
the point is driven home through first-hand experience. For me, that time
happened some years ago when I was running home from school one day. I had
just gotten off the bus, and I had a 15-minute walk to get home, which was
normally not a huge problem, but on that day it had started raining heavily
just before I got off the bus. Looking out the window of the bus, I thought
"This is terrible. I'm going to get soaking wet." But just before I got off,
a realization entered my mind and struck me with such force that I still
remember it to this day. It was as if a voice went off in my head and spoke
to me: There was a time when I would have killed to have walking in the rain
be my biggest problem. I came from a youth of desperation and misery, always
suspecting that each day might be my last. To be able to ride a bus and walk
on the street without fear like a "normal" person, and to be at a stage in
life where my biggest worry was that I would get wet, was a dream come true.
I walked home, and I got wet, but if that was the biggest problem in life I
could come up with, then my life was privileged indeed. I stopped mentally
complaining.
  The worst thing that can happen to us isn't that we'll go through hardship;
much worse would be if we gave up on trying to resolve it. By all means,
identify the problems that you see around you and do what you can to fix
them, but understand that as long as you live, there will always be problems
in this world.