gurdjieff

this is a exerpt from the book "boyhood with gurdjieff" in which the author (fritz peters) recounts his experience as a child in the '20s growing up at the mystic Gurdjieff's "institute for the harmonious development of man"

He went on, then, to say that life was a "two-edged sword.
In your country, you think life is only for pleasure. You have
saying in your country: 'pursuit of happiness', and this saying
show that people not understand life. Happiness is nothing,
is only other side of unhappiness. But in your country, in most
of world now, people only want happiness. Other things also
important: suffering important because is also part of life,
necessary part. Without suffering man cannot grow, but when
you suffer, you think only of self, you feel sorry for self, wish
not to suffer because this make you feel not comfortable, make
you wish escape from thing that make you feel bad. When man
suffer, he feel only self-pity. Not so if real man. Real man also
sometimes feel happiness, real happiness; but when he also
feel real suffering, he not try to stop this thing in self. He
accept this because he know is proper to man. Must suffer to
know truth about self; must learn suffer with will. When
suffering come to man must make intentional suffering, must
feel with all being; must wish with such suffering that it will
help make conscious; help to understand."