You wouldn’t know how strong you are if it wasn’t for the hard days.

This is knowledge nobody wanted. You find out you can make the phone calls, sit in the room, keep the paperwork in order while everything else is coming apart, and you'd hand the certificate back if that were on offer.

It's still knowledge. People who have been through a hard thing carry a quiet, unglamorous confidence about the next one. Not that it will be fine. That they've seen what they do under load.

Nothing about that makes the hard days worth it. It means only that they left something behind besides damage.