I governed during the darkest years of our nation's history. Six hundred thousand men died in a war fought on our own soil. There were days I could not eat, could not sleep. My own son died while I was in office. I know something about difficult times. What sustained me was not optimism — that sunny feeling that things will work out. Optimism is fragile. It shatters when confronted with hard reality. What sustained me was something deeper: a conviction that my work mattered, regardless of whether I would live to see its fruits. I could not know if the Union would survive. I could not know if slavery would truly end. But I could know that the cause was just, and that doing right was its own reward. Find your cause. Not a distant, abstract good, but something you can serve today, even in small ways. Purpose is the antidote to despair. When you are working toward something meaningful, you can bear almost any hardship. And do not bear it alone. In my darkest hours, I sought the company of others — sometimes to talk, sometimes merely to sit in silence together. Human connection is oxygen for the soul. Finally, remember that this too shall pass. I wore a ring with those words. Nothing endures forever — neither the good, nor the bad. The night may be long, but morning comes.
