What's needed is the ability to accept misfortune and/or good fortune without being mastered by it.
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Shake that bag out onto the table, so you can see all the loose pieces at once. Look at each one, turning it over, weighing it, asking: what's it worth? How does it fit?
The thing is the willingness to discard the pieces that no longer fit. Perhaps easier for some than for others.
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If one always has one's nose in a book, is one learning a lot, or is one avoiding that thing that everyone else considers "life"?
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The ritual of drinking and eating. Coffee is a ritual, as is tea: the process of making, of heating water, of pulling out cups or mugs--often for more than one. But if only for one, often related to the start of the day. Sharing a meal, also: to sit down with another, or with several, at a meal can be a ritual of intimacy.
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To live constantly in the present--
To keep one's mind on what one is doing--
always??
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To begin is hard enough. If, however, after some hard-won progress, you find it all wiped out--undone--to begin again is almost too much to bear.
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