Hell to Heaven

In the book "Dante's Inferno," the characters Dante and Virgil have to go all the way to the bottom, the very bottom of Hell, and they must find Mount Purgatorio, which leads to Heaven.  How does this relate to our own lives? How do we often go through hell in order to achieve our own little slice of heaven, working hard so that you can get a new computer or have a meal?

Now, constantly in my life, and in everyone else's life, there are very hard things that happen. But if you do those hard things, eventually you can achieve your own little Nirvana. You know, working on the dishes so you can get an energy drink. I think Dante is trying to tell us this exact thing, as he is stating that we have to go through our own struggles to reach our own heaven.