misfortunes and good sense

I know that it’s nearly impossible to resist the first upsets
that new misfortunes arouse in us, and even that the best
minds are usually the ones in which passions are the most
violent and act most strongly on their bodies. But it seems
to me that on the following day, when sleep has calmed the
emotions that the blood carries in such circumstances, the
person can begin to get his mind in order, calming it down.
To do this, focus on thinking of all the •benefits you can get
from whatever it was that you had taken to be a great mishap
the day before, and turn your attention away from the •evils
you had imagined in it. ·This can be done·, because there
are no events so disastrous, or so absolutely bad in people’s
judgment, that a lively-minded person couldn’t look at them
from an angle that would make them appear favourable. You
can draw this general consolation from the misfortunes that
have come your way: they may have contributed greatly
towards your developing your mind to the point that you
have—and that’s a good that you should value more than
an empire! Great prosperity often dazzles and intoxicates in
such a way that it possesses those that have it rather than
being possessed by them. Although this doesn’t happen to
anyone with a cast of mind like yours, prosperity would still
give you fewer openings for the exercise of your mind than
adversity does. I believe that just as nothing in the world
can be called ‘good’ without qualification except good sense,
so there is no evil from which we can’t draw some benefit if
we have good sense.


Descartes