Once upon a time there was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away. That evening, all of his neighbors came around to commiserate. They said, “We are so sorry to hear your horse has run away. This is most unfortunate.” The farmer said, “Maybe.” The next day the horse came back bringing seven wild horses with it, and in the evening everybody came back and said, “Oh, isn’t that lucky. What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses!” The farmer again said, “Maybe.”

The following day his son tried to break one of the horses, and while riding it, he was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbors then said, “Oh dear, that’s too bad,” and the farmer responded, “Maybe.” The next day the conscription officers came around to conscript people into the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. Again all the neighbors came around and said, “Isn’t that great!” Again, he said, “Maybe.”

The whole process of nature is an integrated process of immense complexity, and it’s really impossible to tell whether anything that happens in it is good or bad — because you never know what will be the consequence of the misfortune; or, you never know what will be the consequences of good fortune.

— Alan Watts

Tomorrow will be another day. So will the day after tomorrow. And so will the day after that, and the day after that, and so on and so forth. You can have an idea of what might happen tomorrow, but you can’t know for sure. You also can’t know for sure what the events of tomorrow will bring the day after tomorrow. The best that any of us can do is to hope for the best and prepare for the worst⁠—regardless of what form those preparations take. We can also take some comfort in the fact that this, too, shall pass.

Stop trying to bring other people into your pity party; self-loathing and self-aggrandizing are the same kind of ego trip and they’re not endearing in the slightest. Start getting your shit together; you don’t know if or when the worst could happen, and if you don’t prepare now, you won’t be prepared if and when the worst does happen. And for the love of all things holy and divine and miraculous in this world, stop intentionally trying to make yourself feel like shit.