“Because the nursing assistant had inadvertently left the door ajar, I watched the older man begin his physical examination,” writes Cecil Murphey in his new book Making Sense When Life Doesn’t: The Secrets of Thriving in Tough Times. “’Stand on your right foot for ten seconds,’ she told him, ‘then switch to your left.’” The man’s compliance caught Murphey’s attention, he recalls: “He stood on one foot. His arms flapped and his body swayed – forward, backward, to one side, and then the other. He didn’t fall, but it was obvious he didn’t have good balance. That’s how life is, I thought.”