This message features a new twist on a common phrase. When times are desperate, it is essential that we not become desperate with them. Common sense and common decency during desperate times show that we are not slaves to circumstances, that it is not circumstances but rather our values that define us, the code by which we have chosen to live. The true test of our commitment to our values is whether we can live by them during desperate times, rather than allowing the times to make us desperate. To live as we ought to live, despite the desperate times we live in, is the only way to maintain our humanity.

This message is part of The Trad Store’s Chestertonian series, which features sayings by and in the spirit of the great journalist and apologist, G.K. Chesterton (1874–1936).