The best way to make life more tolerable is to acknowledge that both the good and the bad all have a period of before, during and after. No change in mindset or negligence can alter that fact.
Bad events are followed by dread and the good by anticipation, both are intolerable—one because you just want to get something over with and the other because you cannot wait for something to happen.
And then there is the during—the time in your life where the big event happens whether you want it to or not. Where nine times out of ten you are too wrapped up in the moment to be grateful that it's happening, or fear it.
Finally, the quiet after the storm, something painfully bittersweet—the relief or the grief that is silent yet consuming.
I believe that it is the continuation of events that masks the excitement, dims the gratitude when something you’ve longed for becomes yours. Think about it, perhaps there is a point in life you can’t wait to arrive at, a point months even years away from where you are at the moment. If by some miracle there was a way to skip the parts leading up to achieving that milestone it would feel incredibly tremendous. Yet, reality forces us to go through the in between, for in that in between is where we are still building the structure upon which the future will rest. Of course, the higher up we go the easier it is to forget where we started from and that invisible ache of trying to remember, trying to feel gratitude, is gnawing.
No matter the phase, however, one thing is certain—that life moves on. We don’t wield the power to prolong the parts we want to cherish or skip what we don’t. Maybe that’s the beauty of life itself—time doesn’t value the importance of events, it just exists, pushing us forward.