Confronting Problems Is Painful

To willingly confront a problem early, before we are forced to confront it by circumstances, means to put aside something pleasant or less painful for something more painful. It is choosing to suffer now in the hope of future gratification rather than choosing to continue present gratification in the hope that future suffering will not be necessary.

“She will grow out of it” is not a strategy.

…parental decisions are difficult, and the children often do “grow out of it”. But it almost never hurts to try to help them grow out of it or to look more closely at the problem. And while children often “grow out of it”, often they do not; and as with so many problems, the longer children’s problems are ignored, the larger they become and the more painful and difficult to solve.

Notes from “The Road Less Traveled” by M. Scott Peck, M.D.