Not to count or to reckon: to ripen like a tree which does not force its sap, but in the storms of spring stands confident without being afraid that afterwards no summer may come. The summer comes all right. But it only comes to the patient, to those who are there as carefree and quiet and immense, as if eternity lay before them. Daily we learn, learn it through our sufferings [to which we are grateful] that patience is everything.

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet