Never cut a tree down in the wintertime. Never make a negative decision in the low time. Never make your most important decisions when you are in your worst moods. Wait. Be patient. The storm will pass. The spring will come.

Schuller frames emotional downturns as a “wintertime” in which perception narrows and judgment can become distorted. The counsel is practical rather than mystical: postpone irreversible choices—ending relationships, quitting work, abandoning projects—until one’s mood stabilizes and more information (and hope) returns. By pairing the concrete image of felling a tree with the inner life of “worst moods,” he suggests that despair can lead to needless destruction of something that might revive with time. The closing assurance—storms pass, spring comes—casts patience as an active discipline and positions resilience as a predictable rhythm rather than a rare miracle.