Recently I've been working with a person who seems to be kinda fucked-up. But I was thinking about it, and there's actually nothing wrong with them except that they're young.
Yeah, yeah, I know: old guy going on about youth being wasted on the young and so forth. But that's really not quite it. I'm really talking about "lack of experience". And, sadly, not the fulfilling, happy kind of experience. I'm talking stuff that falls under the general category of Big Life Challenges:
- Death of parents / siblings / close friends
- Something bad happening to your child
- Meeting someone / having an affair
- Job loss / career crossroads
- Divorce
- Money loss
- Being diagnosed with cancer or other nasty
- Alcoholism / drug addiction
- Failure
- Loss
That's not intended to be a comprehensive list.
As bad as these things are - and I've personally danced with each and every one of them - they are also things that can make you a better, stronger person. If they don't kill you or otherwise destroy you, I mean. This is a philosophical position that is an understandably hard sell to anyone who is currently undergoing tough times.
It's entirely possible that these experiences could warp a person and make them mean and evil: there are any number of comic book villains who were nice people until they were experienced some kind of trauma (ex: Lex Luthor's issues stemmed from losing his hair at an early age). But in Real Life, I like to hope that most people ultimately deal with it in a non-pathological manner, and develop new reserves of empathy, compassion, tolerance, and other positive human traits.