Before I taught my students how to paint using oils I insisted that they first paint a portrait using acrylic paint. I wanted them to suffer through the difficulty of painting a portrait using acrylics first because if they didn't they would not appreciate the beauty, ease and elegance of oil paint.
For those of you who are not artists, it is very difficult to paint a good portrait in acrylics because it lacks depth, luminosity and the ability to blend smoothly. Oils however blend together beautifully and they allow you the ability to achieve depth in color that cannot be achieve with any other paint. My students were amazed at the difference and they understood why I made them suffer and struggle with acrylics first in order to appreciate how much easier it was to paint a portrait in oils!
On my way home I was thinking about the comments that my students made...thanking me for holding back the oil paint. They completely understood my motivation. I thought to myself, it is the same in life. If we get everything that we want right away without "struggling or suffering" a little then we don't have the appreciation of good things when they come our way.
The struggles that you are in today are developing the strengths that you need for tomorrow. As I look back on my life, every time that I thought that I was being rejected from something good I was only being guided to something better.
So remember that life is full of challenges. Challenges make life interesting, overcoming them makes life meaningful and helps you discover who you are.
I love you guys, Ms. B.
Helen Keller once said;
"The struggles of life is our greatest blessings. They make us patient, sensitive and Godlike. It teaches us that although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it".