Ben Affleck addresses ‘growing gratitude’ for life’s difficulties

Ben Affleck recently wore his heart on his sleeve and shed light on his journey towards gratitude after facing multiple difficulties along the way.

Affleck shed light on it all during his candid interview with WSJ. Magazine.

There he was quoted saying, “There's a lot that I would want my younger self to understand. Some things, honestly, that I'm too self-conscious of or shy about to be really candid about with the whole world because they're mostly mistakes."

"Things I wish I had done differently, and they're rooted in that instinct to look at my past and think, I wish I could have avoided this painful event.' I wish I could have not caused someone else pain. I wish I had understood better the nature of what was difficult about life for me."

"I wish I did not have to learn some lessons the hard way. But maybe this is just rationalizing because the alternative is too painful."

Affleck also went on to say that there’s no way to get true enlightenment “the easy way” and added that he "had to learn those things in an authentic, meaningful way to really learn the lessons that I've really internalized, that have created the values that I have now even though most of them were born of failure."

Affleck added, "I used to be irritated by people who would say, 'Oh, I have these problems and I'm grateful for them.' I used to think, 'This is [expletive]. You're not grateful for disasters, creating pain and wreckage in your life.”

“Say you feel [expletive] about it and you wish you were better!' Only within the last five years, I really felt increasingly grateful for the difficulties that I've had."

Before concluding he added, "Life is difficult, and we are always failing and hopefully learning from those failures. The one thing you really need to avail yourself of the opportunities provided from that growth is the second chance. I've definitely tried to take advantage of that. I haven't always been successful, but in cases in which I have, they've turned out to be the defining aspects of my life. I feel great about being very healthy."