When It Happens--if It Happens

In an essay “On Tranquility of Mind,” Seneca wrote some sentences concerning the disappointment, the discouragement, the sorrows that sometime come to all of us. “No one could endure adversity,” he said,” if while it continued, it kept the same violence that its first blows had. . . . No state is so bitter that a calm mind cannot find in it some consolation. . . . It is pollible to soften what is hard, . . . and burdens will press less heavily upon those who bear them skillfully.”¹ If the first news we have of an accident or illness or disappointment, or death, or loss of a loved on⎯if this continued with its first shock, we couldn’t carry it. Sometimes people say: “I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t live if this should happen to me.” But when it happens, if it happens, they do stand it, they do live with it, they do adjust to it. They change the pattern of their lives to fit the facts, and do what has to be done. We do learn to live with problems. We learn to carry what we cannot alter or avoid. Time does have a healing softening influence, and often is the only answer to what at first seems unbearable. And we should avoid, if we can, making final or far-reaching decisions in a time of sudden sorrow. Our judgment may be impaired at first. We need to think, to pray, to assess the situation. Decisions made in anger, in acute illness, in sudden sorrow, are not likely to be well seasoned decisions. But with time, reality and reason come to our rescue and help us make decisions that are more mature. “The greatest misfortune of all,” said an ancient philosopher, “is not to be able to bear misfortune.”² None of us live through life without some scars, some disappointments, some crises, some hard facts to face, and what we thought we couldn’t bear we do adjust to. Hold on. Don’t give up. Don’t lose faith. Don’t despair. Take time enough to pause, to pray, to reappraise, to think things through before making any unalterable decision. With time and patience and faith, we do learn to live with what we must learn to live with.