Whenever this discussion comes up, I go dig out my college paperback copy of *Candide,* a book I did not appreciate back then. Voltaire heaps ridicule on the idea that everything is just the way it spoze to be. (sorry, Kat.)

Half of experience is what happens to you; the other half is how you deal with it.

I bridled in my bleakest moments when this blandishment was offered to me as comfort.

Came very close to decking such an idiot at my sister's funeral ...