How to suffer successfully

"Prousts's suggestion is that we become properly inquisitive only when distressed. We suffer, therefore we think, and we do so because thinking helps us to place pain in context, it helps us to understand its origins, plot its dimensions and reconcile ourselves to its presence."

"Griefs, at the moment when they change into ideas, lose some of their power to injure our heart."

---by Alain De Botton from "How Proust can change your life"