There's a place in Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson, where her main character, an old preacher working on living gracefully as he's dying, muses on his choices in the face of his physical discomfort: "I have decided the two choices open to me are (1) to torment myself or (2) to trust the Lord. There is no earthly solution to the problems that confront me. But I can add to my problems, as I believe I have done, by dwelling on them. So, no more of that."

At times I envy the stoicism of age, the willingness to go around that which is in the way. When younger, the motto is confront! solve! do battle with! Yet as I age, sometimes more world-weary at the end of the day than I like, I like this man's solution of dwelling less on earthly troubles, a challenge for a born ruminator.