I believe in one God,
the Father almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all things visible and invisible. I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the Only Begotten Son of God,
born of the Father before all ages.
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
and became man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate,
he suffered death and was buried,
and rose again on the third day
in accordance with the Scriptures.
He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead
and his kingdom will have no end. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets. I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins
and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

There is an experiment from 1957 that explains every comeback story I have ever respected. A researcher named Curt Richter dropped rats into cylinders of water with no way out. On average, they swam for 15 minutes and then sank. The autopsies were the strange part. The rats still had energy in their muscles. Their hearts were healthy. They had not drowned from exhaustion. They had drowned from giving up. So Richter ran it again. This time, just before each rat would have quit, he scooped it out, dried it off, held it for a few minutes, then placed it back in the same impossible water. Those rats swam for 60 hours. Same rats. Same cylinder. Same task. The only difference was that they had been rescued once before. So their nervous system encoded the possibility that rescue could come again. I think about this experiment constantly. Because everyone I have ever known who has built, lost everything, and rebuilt larger shares one quiet trait. They do not fear the loop the way first-timers do. They have seen the cylinder before. They have the receipt that says: this resolves. The hopeless drown with strength still in the tank. The ones who have been rescued once can swim for days.