From the Sheridan-Douglas Tarot, the Eight of Swords; from the Pages of Shustah, Destiny:
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
― Marcus Aurelius
Destiny (the Shustah card) refers to external things that we can't control. The Eight of Swords puts us smack dab in the middle of a bunch of them. It's easy to get overwhelmed in this place and fall into "woe is me" mode. In Buddhism, suffering is said to be caused by the disconnect between what we want and what reality gives us. Yet if we can find a way to calm and center ourselves, we can take another peek at reality and perhaps see that while it may be upsetting, it isn't as horrible as we imagined it to be. At this point, we can determine an appropriate response to deal with it.
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