There are times to cultivate and create, when you nurture your world and give birth to new ideas and ventures.  There are times of flourishing and abundance, when life feels in full bloom, energized and expanding.  And there are times of fruition, when things come to an end.  They have reached their climax and must be harvested before they begin to fade.  And finally of course, there are times that are cold, and cutting and empty, times when the spring of new beginnings seems like a distant dream.  Those rhythms in life are natural events.  They weave into one another as day follows night, bringing not messages of hope and fear, but messages of how things are.

Chogyam Trunpa

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To everything – turn, turn, turn
There is a season – turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep

A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones
A time to gather stones together

A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace
A time you may embrace
A time to refrain from embracing

To everything – turn, turn, turn
There is a season – turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven

A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time to love, a time to hate
A time of peace, I swear it’s not too late!

Pete Seeger, from Ecclesiastes

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These eight worldly conditions, O monks, keep the world turning around, and the world turns around these eight worldly conditions.  What eight?  Gain and loss, fame and disrepute, praise and blame, pleasure and pain. 

These eight worldly conditions, monks, are encountered by an uninstructed worldling, and they are also encountered by an instructed noble disciple …

When an instructed noble disciple comes upon gain, he reflects on it thus: “This gain that has come to me is impermanent, bound up with suffering, subject to change.” And so he will reflect when loss and so forth come upon him.  He understands all these things as they really are, and they do not engross his mind.  Thus he will not be elated by gain or dejected by loss; elated by fame or dejected by disrepute; elated by praise or dejected by blame; elated by pleasure or dejected by pain …

Loss and gain, fame and disrepute, praise and blame, pleasure and pain: these things are transient in human life, inconstant and bound to change.  The mindful wise one discerns them well.

The Buddha

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Smart guys
Not their first rodeo