A few quotes from Rudyard Kipling's "If":

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same...

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools...

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss...


One of the things my dad tells me is that some of the worst things that ever happened to him were actually the best. He was able to take a different path and see later how much less happy he would have been had things worked out the way he wanted at the time.

And in Zen; mistakes, losses and failures are seen only as guides showing what the correct path should be. We need to learn to treat these as neutral lessons. The goal is to simply learn from them and move on. While its natural for there to be anger, frustration and even mild depression, don't take this set back too dearly to heart or focus too much emotion on it.

Perhaps now is time to make a major change in life, if you've considered living somewhere else, or doing a radically different job, now maybe the time to do it. Finally from "Fight Club", "Its only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything."