Reading history makes your bad week look survivable. People made it through way worse with way less.

Reading about other people’s centuries does something useful to your own week. The work was heavier, the medicine worse, the choices fewer, and people still got through it, raised children, laughed and built things. Not as a comparison meant to shame you. As evidence about the species you belong to, which is tougher than a bad Tuesday makes it look.

Read one stretch of the past this week, specific rather than general. One family, one siege, one crossing. Then look at your own list of problems and notice which ones have shrunk without you solving a thing.