Nancy Mairs Essay Synthesis of Mairs Three Essays on the Argument for the Defense of a Life of Hardship and Suffering Nancy Mairs is a writer who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when she was 28 years old.

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Nancy Mairs Essay

Synthesis of Mairs’ Three Essays on the Argument for the Defense of a Life of Hardship and Suffering

Nancy Mairs is a writer who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when she was 28 years old. Multiple Sclerosis is a condition of the central nervous system which controls the body’s actions and movements and balance and in her case it was a degenerate version of the disease. After beginning to accept her disability, she discusses how the experience of her being a cripple has enlightened her to the somewhat oxymoronic benefits of living a life of pain. After reviewing the three essays from Nancy Mairs from her book Carnal Acts “Challenge: An Exploration”, “Doing It the Hard Way” and “Good Enough Gifts”, it is simple to see the main ideal that sieves through on these writings: that hardship is an unavoidable and essential part of every humans life but these hardships are invaluable experiences none the less. In Mairs’ three essays she presents an impassioned defense of the life of hardship and suffering and I will be extracting some evidence from the essays to support her assertions.

        

One of her arguments is the idea of spiritual growth through hardship and pain which is re-sated when she maintains that ‘Disability provides ample opportunity for spiritual work and growth’ (Mairs 104, Challenge: An Exploration). Through the restrictions and problems she has faced it has awoken her to find new meaning in life. Proof of her spiritual growth in the first essay comes from the maturity in her thoughts about the labeling of her condition. She does not want to be called physically challenged but to be referred to by a more blunt classification. As a ‘cripple’, ‘I am different from the woman in her parka and goggles, face cracked and blackened, setting out on the last day’s exhausted plod to the summit’. She is saying that she cannot compare or differentiate her physical challenges to that of anyone else who works hard by choice or otherwise which shows a mentality of someone very spiritually aware. This idea of spiritual growth through hardship is highlighted again within the second essay ‘Doing it the Hard Way’. “I think she went in part to postpone momentous decisions about marriage and career

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until she knew more about herself and the world” (Mairs 109, Doing It the Hard Way). She believes that by her daughter going off to live in poverty and experiencing problems that would have never come up within her normal daily life she will be able to learn more about her self hence allowing for spiritual growth and allowing her to continue in life with a better sense of perspective in making the big life choices. ‘Because a difficult life is more complicated than an easy one, it offers opportunities for developing a greater range of response to experience: a ...

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