Is there anyone among us -- particularly early in our astrological studies -- that didn't wish that we had more Trines and Sextiles in our charts and fewer Squares and Oppositions?  Given the opportunity to design our own chart, we certainly would have had at least one Grand Trine and lots of sextiles for good measure.  We might grudgingly accept a Square or two so we didn't seem greedy.

Chances are, however, that times have changed our thoughts and perceptions about these "Bad" or "Hard" aspects (and probably about the "Good" ones as well).  Rather than using the term "bad", I prefer "challenging".  Admittedly, they aren't comfortable, especially early on in our lives.  But by contributing a bit of "uncomfortable-ness" we are motivated to do something in our lives to make it feel better. 

As we study more and more charts, we come to recognize that too much of a good thing is, paradoxically, not very good at all.  And perhaps even more surprising, we may have figured out how to use those challenging aspects in a very positive way.  We may even have become attached to them, finally realizing that we really couldn't very well do without them.

I often use the analogy of "a rock in our shoe" for these challenging aspects.  They encourage to do something, to make changes so that the discomfort doesn't continue endlessly.

It's not as though we can just ignore the situation and it will go away.  We are required to take action to help ourselves...and it isn't something we can delegate to someone else to fix for us.  

Nature provides a good example of what we're talking about here.  The oyster, when a grain of sand causes irritation, forms a protective layer of material to insulate tender tissue from the source of the irritation.  It is the oyster's response to the irritation that changes the situation.  The result is something beautiful, the pearl.

The real task for each of us is to take a long, hard look at the challenging aspects of our chart (and those of our clients).  Using the very same energies responsible for the cause of friction, with some work and introspection we can often turn a potentially difficult situation into quite a positive one. 

For example, a Square from Mars to Saturn can easily describe a feeling of frustrated energy --  that something or someone is preventing us from accomplishing what we want.