An ugly chapter doesn’t mean the book is bad. It means you’re in the middle.

A hard section does not settle the quality of the whole. Judging a life from inside its worst stretch is like closing a book exactly where everything is going wrong, which is the one place nobody can see what comes next. Middles are supposed to be difficult, since that is structurally what they are for. Being in one is not the same as being finished.

Resist drawing conclusions about the whole from this particular month. Ask what this part is asking of you right now instead. Then turn the page, which mostly means getting through today.