A mathematical formula for happiness:Reality divided by Expectations.There were two ways to be happy:improve your reality or lower your expectations. - Jodi Picoult

There are two ways to be happy: improve your reality, or lower your expectations.

There were two ways to be happy: improve your reality, or lower your expectations

And the very act of living is a tide; at first it seems to make no difference at all, and then one day you look down and see how much pain has eroded

My parents tried to make things normal, but that’s a relative term. The truth is, I was never really a kid. To be honest, neither were Kate and Jesse. I guess maybe my brother had his moment in the sun for the four years he was alive before Kate got diagnosed, but ever since then, we’ve been too busy looking over our shoulders to run headlong into growing up. You know how most little kids think they’re like cartoon characters—if an anvil drops on their heads they can peel themselves off the sidewalk and keep going? Well, I never once believed that. How could I, when we practically set a place for Death at the dinner table?

Something still exists as long as there's someone around to remember it.