Hardship, like art, is subjective. It's all relative to your life experience. If once you had money and then you don't, do you suffer more than someone who never had it in the first place? Some of the happiest people I have ever met were those who had nothing, or at the very least, very little.

Two simple pines struggling to hold on to their precarious ledge must have strong roots to withstand the elements, that is what keeps them grounded. They know little of what it is like to live in the lush surroundings of a forest. Up here in the clouds, they enjoy the feelings of heaven in the clouds, floating in the wind.

I wonder who has it better, these two pines or their contemporaries down in the lush forest, fighting for the light?