“Things don’t really get solved.” A big part of dissatisfaction comes from expectations, which are just stories our minds tell us. Pema Chodron, a Buddhist teacher who’s had a huge influence on me, wrote: Things falling apart is a kind of testing and a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together and they fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”

From When Things Fall Apart