In his books, The True and Only Heaven and The Revolt of the Elites, historian Christopher Lasch celebrated what he called “the spiritual discipline against resentment.” Despite the fact that “the world was not made for our convenience” and that there is plenty of pain and suffering, there is also what Lasch calls “the goodness of being.” We are mortal, we are limited, and we suffer. Yet it is good, miraculous even, that we are alive. Life is worth living.

Lasch was inspired by the great civil rights leaders of the 20th century, people such as Martin Luther King Jr., who rejected resentment in favor of hope and love.