Of course, we hope most of our results will be positive. But we still have to learn to live with the bad as well as the good. We can't afford to become unduly discouraged when a new person doesn't work out, a job misses schedule, an order is lost, or our boss turns down a good suggestion. It's only common sense to steer clear of failure. But the person hasn't been born who is clever enough to succeed at everything he or she tries.
Realistic people accept an occasional disappointment as part of the job and make the best of it.
Trouble shared is trouble halved. To battle adversity was nothing new to them. The family, immortalized in the musical The Sound of Music, fled Austria in 1938 rather than submit to orders directing Baron von Trapp, a former submarine captain, to return to the German Navy. When work on their first Vermont lodge was nearing completion, the structure was destroyed by a storm, so they started all over with a second lodge, the one that burned down in 1980. Adversity is a fact of life.