Ironically, many important things in our lives are most clearly defined by what they aren’t, rather than by what they are; or they are best appreciated when we don’t have them anymore. Health is a good example. Usually you don’t wake up thinking. “I’m so glad I feel well today.” But on those days you wake up feeling ill, you know that the best times were and will be when you’re feeling well again.
Minor contrasts and major catastrophes happen as a part of life, but out of the changes can come value. Without change, without disruption, some good and some bad, everything would be the same. We won’t know peace and happiness if we can only experience one way of being.
Unless we recognize that ups and downs are going to happen, we may easily spend our entire lives as passive reactors, instead of actively going forward in our uniquely chosen directions. Unless we realize that we can’t wait to live until everything is in order, we’ll end up asking ourselves as Rabbi Kushner did, “Was there something I was supposed to do with my life?”
We have to play the hand we’ve been dealt.