A story where everything comes elegant to the character is a very bland piece of writing and not a very believable one either. Short stories, in a way, reflect real life.

The characters are real because the characters we think of could be someone in the world. The emotions are real because human beings feel. Some situations and events are real because they could happen in real life.

Even if you were to write a story, which contains elements of fantasy such as in horror or science fiction, some of the above can not reflect real life but the readers will adapt them with things he might compare to or understand in real life. An alien or vampire he will understand in human terms, a trip to the moon will be compared with an exotic trip overseas.

We think like humans because thats the only way we might think and everything around us we adapt to our human way of thinking.

Getting back to your character struggling

Characters have to struggle to achieve their goals because we struggle to achieve our goals. The more worthwhile the desire, the harder it is to achieve, and the more struggle it takes nothing worthwhile ever comes easy.

Before your character may achieve his goals, he has to overcome many obstacles, obstacles you will place in his path. When after everything he does achieve his goals then the resolution of the story will be more satisfying because the character paid his dues and is now receiving what he has worked towards.

Your story doesnt have to have a happy ending though.

Your character doesnt have to achieve his goals. Yours could be a story with an ironic twist, where after all the hard work and struggle, he achieves nothing or gets something he didnt want. Both endings will be satisfying to the readers because the character struggled.

And although the readers might be disappointed that the character didnt get what he wanted, he will be disappointed for the character and not in your story.