Something that was once widely known but has become less commonly espoused nowadays deserves to be axiomatic. Life is difficult. It is a struggle. I may not be a life or death struggle, as once it was, but it is difficult, none the less. It is only occasionally tranquil, it sometimes goes well for periods of time, there can be happiness and all manner of pleasures to be had. But they are transitory, all being subject to change, decay and an end. There is no way around it or through it. It just is.

I have a pile of books beside my bed and a kindle holding many more besides. I am a bit of a butterfly, flitting from novel to bio to tract to verse. I love non-fiction especially. Last night I was reading from a Christian devotional, a series of daily readings clustered around a bi-monthly theme. The theme of this book is strong at the broken places, a quotation derived from Hemingway. It has great appeal to me, for being strong at the broken places is a natural corollary to the idea of life being difficult.

It is not hard to know how to be when things are going well, unless you are a confirmed and hardened pessimist. But it is less easy to know how to be when things are going badly or there is great uncertainty. Building in an expectation of resilience and an acceptance that some things cannot change can only build better people, ones who may be less inclined to rush to alcohol or drugs or frenetic distraction.

'And you would accept the seasons of your heart,
even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.'

from, "On Pain", K. Gibran.