“You're only helpless to life's misfortune for as long as you fail to calm your mind down. Paying too much attention to the noise of chaos puts you under the control of its sway.”

Panic keeps you inside the problem. From a driver’s seat in a jam, all you can see is the car ahead, nothing about how far back the trouble runs or what would clear it, and the same jam from higher up shows which knot to untie first. Deciding to end the mess counts as progress on its own, which sounds like a small thing next to how many people dislike their circumstances without ever getting as far as wanting them changed, or admitting the mess is there at all.