When I complained once that “life is hard,” to a Buddhist friend, he replied, “Compared to what?”

He had a point. And that perspective has helped me a great deal in the last several years, especially recently. But no matter how many Taoist truisms or positive affirmations or sincere compliments from friends you get, there are some days when it seems the only possible human reaction is to say, out loud (but to one’s self), “To hell with it.”

Which I did. I’m going to go to bed early and just hope tomorrow is better, but today was an unexpectedly troubled one. . And I don’t mean to be my typically stupidly coy self by not elaborating…I’m just not sure what to say. But damn.