Thanks Dachlostar!

From my perspective (I am Buddhist) we should thank those that cause us pain for they are our best teachers.

Suffering is what brings us to our knees - when something doesn't hurt us we don't learn. I don't agree that we learn when all is well - well we do but if we think about our lives. When there is a time of great distress we make a choice. We make a choice to grow, to open our hearts - or to cringe, become bitter and closed. Suffering from a Buddhist perspectives gives us our best chances of growth and expansion. Learned and wise Buddhists can greet difficulty much as an old friend "welcome - I am here to learn from you". But of course this takes courage and stillness of mind.

"Thinking that we can find some lasting pleasure and avoid pain is what in Buddhism is called samsara, a hopeless cycle that goes round and round endlessly and causes us to suffer greatly".

"Ours is a society of denial that conditions us to protect ourselves from any direct difficulty and discomfort. We expend enormous energy denying our insecurity, fighting pain, death and loss, and hiding from basic truth of the natural world and of our own nature."