The world is broken. It’s never going to be perfect. If you can accept that, then you can live with it, and do what you can to make it a little bit better.

"The thought of someone you’ve lost or some thing that you’ve lost? Reflect on impermanence and inconstancy: These things are all made to be lost.

Think of Ajaan Chah’s analogy: to think of the cup as already broken. This doesn’t mean that you treat it casually. You actually take very good care of it. But part of the mind has to be prepared that someday it’s going to break. The Buddha compares people to pots. As he says, all pots get broken eventually. Whether it takes a long or a short time, they’re all heading to be broken. In the same way, people are all headed to being broken. The world is broken. It’s never going to be perfect. If you can accept that, then you can live with it, and do what you can to make it a little bit better.

But particularly, do what you can to make yourself better, make yourself more reliable, so that the changes of the world don’t lead to changes inside, at least not to the deterioration of anything good inside. When you can maintain this kind of solidity, then change doesn’t hold any fear, loss doesn’t hold any fear, because you’ve already gathered your good things inside where they’re safe."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Unchanged by Loss" (Meditations10)

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