When times are good, there's often a wonderful but dangerous illusion that things will never change. When times are bad, there's often a cruel and equally dangerous illusion that things will never change.
But things do change. And that can be either a shock or a relief, a source of grief or of joy.
In his recently published memoir, Even This I Get to Experience, my old friend Norman Lear recalls that on his sixtieth birthday, his daughter Kate in a toast described him as someone who "walks through life's peaks and valleys with equal wonder." What a rare and tremendous thing to say, and, really, what an amazing attribute to have.
There are peaks and valleys, aren't there? And the journey we're on now has to involve them both. Try to embrace each with equal wonder and a readiness for whatever comes next.
We live amid mysteries and, in the end, it's all a wonder.