Imagine a tube of toothpaste. Now imagine that, inside the tube, one believes there to be unbelievable horrors, infinite challenges, woes beyond measure. What is inside the tube is the future. The universe squeezes out the contents, one day at a time. The contents turn out only ever to be ordinary. Banal. At best, very good indeed; at worst, tolerable, in the end. Everything is always OK once it's happened.