Bout: (n) a short period of intense activity of a specified kind

Everything can’t be a struggle.

There are certain people I’m acquainted with who spend most of their time sighing or frowning over the simple task set before them.

They know these responsibilities are coming.

They are familiar with them.

But for some reason or another, they think it makes them more adult to be cranky.

But somewhere along the line, we have to produce some joy–otherwise we have no strength. The absence of strength is the introduction of anemic effort.

Not everything is a “bout:”

• You don’t have a bout of doing the laundry.
• It is not a bout of cooking dinner.
• Buying Christmas presents should not be a bout.

But we can probably agree that calling it a bout with cancer is in order.

Maybe even a bout with insomnia.

I will give you a bout with diarrhea.

The actual way that we show our maturity is by proving that the journey we’ve been on has given us some skill to approach our difficulties … without a grimace.