It’s Monday 5pm. You’re on your way home after an exhausting day at work that included a fight with your boss. Now you’re stuck in traffic. The news on the radio cheerfully announces hundreds of dead in a coalmine accident. And you can look forward to finishing the argument with your wife. You need to get a grip.

Zoom out

Think about your neighborhood. You might or might not know anyone but you should remember its layout, the trees, the flowers, maybe some familiar faces. It buzzes with life in a fairly predictable manner.

Now consider the city. The constant traffic delivering goods and people wherever they need to go. The business going on inside shops and offices. People exercising in parks. Social events. The crime in darker alleys.

Think about your country. Its shape and geography. Its complex ecosystem. Consider the biggest settlements. Think about the ways your country makes money.

Contemplate the world. Its iron core. Its atmosphere. Your country is now but a speck tangled in natural, economic and political currents it cannot understand or control. And yet it thrives.

Look at the Solar System. Think about the Sun, the incredible gravitational pressure powering the fusion reactions that ultimately result in the light and heat you need. Your pet planet is constantly bombarded by space debris and extremely energetic particles. Such a tiny blue ball; so precious and fragile.

And yet, out here everything seems simpler. The planets and various objects proceed in their clockwork motion that we can predict for millions of years. And we also know how it came to be.

This is where physicists come to find peace. You can too.