‘But we get accustomed to mental as well as bodily pain, without, for all that, losing our sensibility to it; it becomes a habit of our lives and we cease to imagine a condition of perfect ease as possible for us. Desire is chastened into submission, and we are contented with our day when we have been able to bear our grief in silence and act as if we were not suffering. For it as such periods that the sense of our lives having visible and invisible relations beyond any of which our present or prospective self is the centre, grows like a muscle that we are obliged to lean on and exert.’
From Adam Bede by George Eliot 1819 – 1880.
I came across this passage many years ago; I find it comforting. So when ever life seems somewhat bleak and I have to rummage through dense dark clouds in search of hidden silver linings I read it again, the words have never failed to soothe.
Just Add Attitude 