William Shakespeare had a tremendous grasp of life and human nature. “When sorrows come,” he wrote, “they come not single file but in battalions.” My mother used to say, “When it rains, it pours!” meaning essentially the same thing. Nobody apart from a sadistic individual intent on self-destruction would purposely choose to punish himself by bringing difficulty or pain into his life. It just happens, often unexpectedly and without warning. The phone rings in the middle of the night. It’s bad news. Your job plays out on you, the one you thought would take you to retirement. Your daughter at college lobs a hand-grenade, letting you know that she’s dropping out of school to marry the young man who has no job. You are confronted with a malpractice suit at the very time you have paid off your school debt, and often one difficulty follows another as surely as the moon and the sun.