The-Conquest-of-Happiness-by-Bertrand-Russell

who is working for some much-needed reform may
find all his efforts sidetracked by a war, and may
be forced to realise that what he has worked for
will not come about in his lifetime. But he need not
on that account sink into complete despair,
provided that he is interested in the future of
mankind apart from his own participation in it.
The cases we have been considering are those in
which resignation is most difficult; there are a
number of others in which it is much easier. These
are the cases in which only subsidiary purposes
suffer a check, while the major purposes of life
continue to offer a prospect of success. A man, for
example, who is engaged in important work shows
a failure in the desirable kind of resignation if he is
distracted by matrimonial unhappiness; if his work
is really absorbing, he should regard such
incidental troubles in the way in which one regards
a wet day, that is to say, as a nuisance about which
it would be foolish to make a fuss.
Some people are unable to bear with patience even