The grass is always greener on the other side.

The married man says, "How nice it would be if I could be single like my bachelor friends, to be free of bothersome obligations towards my wife and children". The bachelor says to himself, "How great life would be if only I had a family to be with when I return from work each day and loneliness is wiped away forever".

The poor man looks across the road and says to himself, "If only that house belonged to me and I could be rich like that man, and I wouldn't have to strive so hard to make ends meet". The rich man looks through his window across to the poor man's simple hut and says, "Lucky man, his cost of maintenance is so low he doesn't have to worry much about survival".

Much of our discontentment in life and lack of gratitude stem from myths we entertain about other people's lives. We often think that other people somehow have it better, that perhaps their lives are better than ours, that the gravity of their problems is somewhat significantly lighter than ours. We think that if we had their lives, or perhaps that if we could swap our disabilities with theirs, life would have been much better.

I have met and spoken with enough people to realise by now that everyone is confronted by very personal problems in life. And no matter how small we may think their problems are, everyone thinks his problem is huge. Just like we too think our problems are humungous.

Our liberation comes when we realise that each is apportioned his lot in life, and that we are all called to carry our crosses. For a cross to constitute a cross, it has to be proportionately large to the bearer. Otherwise, it wouldn't truly be a life trial, and therefore, hardly a cross at all.

Too often, we try to separate ourselves away from our crosses like Peter Pan's repeated attempts to separate himself from his shadow. But true liberation comes when we embrace our own shadows and do the best we can to live with them.

Our life project isn't so much about killing our shadows or solving problems that may be unsolvable. It is probably more about befriending our shadow and integrating it as a part of our life identity. It is also about nurturing the shadow so that it becomes a source of strength for us rather than the source of our downfall.

Carrying our crosses calls for a very special skill, that is, the skill of self-mastery. And all of our lives are a process of cultivating self-mastery, beginning with an awareness of one's own inclinations, intentions, and motivations. When one masters the self, the shadow becomes a friend and no longer a foe.

Contrary to what we may think, we are not the only broken people in the world. If we cared to listen to stories that people may tell about themselves, we would come to realise that people are generally wounded, because we're all born into a wounded world. But in befriending our shadows, our wounds can become sources of healing to ourselves and to others.