Yes, it is kind of a cliché, but at least it is a takeway line – ‘We need to remember, even the things that hurt.‘ Don’t be in a hurry to forget an unhappy experience or its precious hard-earned lessons might be forgotten too. Even though we naturally cling to happy moments, unhappiness shape us much too, if not more, in resilence and such especially. Well, there is only so ‘much’ to learn from having things go your way.
Paradoxically, we might be less happy now if we were more happy before. Having braved through challenges, we emerge stronger and better in the long run. Never mistake short-lived exhaustion as weakness, to be worse off. Just rest and recuperate. When things normalise, after taking stock well, the physical and spiritual muscle memories for combating similar or more challenging crises should remain.
As Ernest Hemingway wrote in ‘A Farewell to Arms’, ‘The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.‘ Where scar tissue forms, are we not stronger? Definitely, physically. But it might take effort to make it spiritually too. Be without denial of the unhappy, as it was what it was, but be without attachment to the unhappiness too. Simply sift, to fully milk the lessons from your traumas. Only by making peace with the really disturbing, can we attain true peace of mind.
