Each hard year is a shelf you’ll stand on later to reach something higher.

Difficult stretches leave something behind even when they were not worth it by any fair accounting. You come out knowing what you can survive, how you behave under pressure, who actually turned up. That knowledge becomes the surface you stand on next, which is not a reason the hard year happened, only what you can do with it now.

Name one thing a bad period taught you that you still use. Nothing forced, and no need to be grateful for the pain itself. Then use the height it gave you for something previously out of reach.