In April 2020 I received a phone call informing me that a close family member had died unexpectedly. I wandered outside for some fresh air and, overcome with grief, started weeping uncontrollably. Looking up at the night sky, I imagined what I would look like from the perspective of someone thousands of light-years away: a puny figure grappling clumsily with the mysteries of existence. Far from inflaming my pain, the vision showed me a way through it. I then did something quite peculiar for me, given that I’m not religious: I took a knee. I bowed my head. Through my tears I told the universe that I did not understand its rules but that I would no longer seek to. I submitted. A line from a poem by T.S. Eliot that I had read in college popped into my head: “The rest is not our business.”
A version of this article appeared in the January–February 2023 issue of Harvard Business Review.