Who knows whether little daily stresses and injuries make our bodies stronger in the long run, or instead accumulate and eventually wear us down. Maybe it's somehow both. And maybe it's the same with emotional stress and injury. It's probably better to think about the strengthening effects more than the weakening effects, but you're bound to miss something if that's all you see. My guess is that there is a lot of truth about all this in a Matthew Arnold poem (Growing Old) that Garrison Keillor reads every now and then.
