Our inner life is complex and multifaceted, like a vast and varied landscape requiring diverse experiences to cultivate it. At times we are challenged to walk and run, at other times to stay and sit. Disappointment is as crucial to our inner life as reliability, the same way that cold is as necessary to the life of a lilac bush as is the sun….Beings like us could never stay in bloom in a tropical world of uninterrupted satisfactions. We need all seasons for a fully realized human experience. Only in a world with shadows can our inner life flourish. The challenge is a ruthless fealty to the seasons of life and change. This includes losses, abandonments and endings chosen or imposed…Disappointment may also be a grace, “the fastest chariot to enlightenment” as the Tibetan saying goes.

David Richo, How to be an Adult in Relationships.