I am grateful for the joy my good fortune brings, and the growth my hardships bring.

Not every hardship is a teacher. Some of it is just damage, and the pressure to extract a lesson from it can be its own small cruelty — one more task handed to someone already flattened.

What's true is quieter: people often do come out of hard stretches carrying something they use later. Patience with others in trouble. A clearer sense of what actually matters.

But that's allowed to be retrospective. You don't owe anyone a silver lining while you're still inside it.

And if you're in a good stretch right now, enjoy it plainly, without bracing. That's rarer than it sounds.