Because obstacles will always present themselves, the hardest obstacle of all is developing a way of living, a way of practicing your approach to life that allows you to keep a healthy perspective on things.
I came to the conclusion that the optimist thought everything good except the pessimist, and that the pessimist thought everything bad, except himself.
Character wants room; must not be crowded on by persons, nor be judged from glimpses got in the press of affairs, or on few occasions. It needs perspective, as a great building.
The honest ratepayer and his healthy family have no doubt often mocked at the dome-like forehead of the philosopher, and laughed over the strange perspective of the landscape that lies beneath him. If they really knew who he was, they would tremble. For Chuang Tsǔ spent his life in preaching the great creed of Inaction, and in pointing out the uselessness of all things.
It is our needs that interpret the world; our drives and their For and Against. Every drive is a kind of lust to rule; each one has its perspective that it would like to compel all other drives to accept as a norm.
I'm sure all of us agree that we need to overcome violence, but we first need to examine whether it has any value. From a strictly practical perspective, on certain occasions violence appears to be useful. We can solve a problem quickly by force. But this success is often at the expense of the rights and welfare of others. Although one problem has been solved, the seed of another has been planted.
Which aspects of our nature will prevail is uncertain, particularly when our visions and prospects are bound to one small part of the small planet Earth. But up there in the Cosmos an inescapable perspective awaits.