It's funny that you posted this today BeingMe, because I was thinking of just that phrase in regards to Phoenix's last comment to me about making changes that are best for us as opposed to changing for the sake of change: Choose the better part.
I think that it's entirely possible that the difficult times in our lives present opportunities for us to realize that there are choices out there waiting to be made that we never realized existed prior to our trials.
I read this passage in a book recently, and it really hit me:
C.S. Lewis believed that "we are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea."
And, I think that you are correct in what you said: "the difficult times in our lives are only as important and destructive as we allow it to be."
