"You can't calm the storm...so stop trying. What you can do is calm yourself. The storm will pass."
-Timber Hawkeye
We can't avoid storms, or stressful situations. They happen to all of us and no matter how hard be may try, we can never control them.
We can only control ourselves. I think a really important lesson we all learn in this lifetime is our ability to control ourselves in stressful situations, and mastering how we let external things, that are out of our control, affect us.
I don't know the answer, but I think sometimes life has a funny way of testing us. Events tend to repeat like it's the universe's way of giving us another shot at doing something different, reacting differently... maybe doing it right this time.
Learning how to control or calm ourselves in negative and stressful times is definitely not easy. But, neither is living a life spent frustrated, angry, and trying to control every moment and situation; causing us more and more stress.
I think it's important to remember, though not easy, we only have the control over how we react. Storms always pass. We can choose to let them beat us up and get the best of us, or we can try to work on calming ourselves through those storms.