The ONLY Thing That’ll Make All Your Problems Suddenly Seem Smaller

Prove me wrong.

In 1347, a Florentine merchant named Giovanni di Balduccio was obsessed with a lawsuit.

Some competitor had cheated him out of 200 florins. a decent sum, but not life-ruining. Still, Giovanni spent every waking moment plotting his legal revenge. He hired lawyers. He gathered witnesses. He wrote angry letters to anyone who’d listen. The lawsuit consumed him for months.

Then the Black Death arrived in Florence.

Giovanni watched his neighbors die in the streets. Then his business partner. Then his children. Within six weeks, half the city was dead. Including Giovanni’s competitor, the man he’d been suing.

In his final days, delirious with fever, Giovanni wrote one sentence in his journal that historians discovered centuries later. And in that one sentence lies eternal secret to peace: