Life is not a race to restore a past situation. Nor does one have to hurry to meet the future. Seeing how things change is what makes life interesting.

Everyone thinks that courage is about facing death without flinching. But almost anyone can do that. Almost anyone can hold their breath and not scream for as long as it takes to die. True courage is about facing life without flinching. I don't mean the times when the right path is hard, but glorious at the end. I'm talking about enduring the boredom, the messiness, and the inconvenience of doing what is right.

This is philosophy, Fool. I have never had time to study such things.’ ‘No, Fitz, this is life. And no one has time not to think of such things. Each creature in the world should consider this thing, every moment of the heart’s beating. Otherwise, what is the point of arising each day?

I met her gaze; she looked at me as if she knew the answer to every mystery. I leaned in closer, taking in her scent, and the wolf in me leapt high. Mine. Suddenly she was obviously mine in every way. My club, to protect. Mine. From this moment, I would die rather than see harm come to her. Mine. The Wit told me this little spark of life burned strong. Tiny she was, she would never be prey. ~142

But it had taken me years to accept his absence in my life was a deliberate finality, an act he had chosen, a thing completed even as some part of my soul still dangling, waiting for his return. That, I think, is the shock of any relationship ending. It is realizing that what is still an ongoing relationship to someone is, for the other person, something finished and done with.

Had he ever truly cared about our friendship? There are always those dark thoughts, I must believe, when a deep friendship ends so abruptly. But every wound becomes a scar, eventually. That one would never entirely ceased being tender, but I learn to live with it.

I don't want to have these burdens. But I can't bear to turn them over to anyone else, either. Because, despite all the work, I like being in control of my own life.

That is the challenge Companion. To take what has happened to you and learn from it. Nothing is quite so destructive as pity, especially self-pity. No event in life is so terrible that one cannot rise above it.

One must plan for the future and anticipate the future without fearing the future.