From a book I translated, "Tender Returns," by Rubem Alves:

"I envy plants and animals. They seem to me so calm, possessing a wisdom that we don’t have. As if they were enjoying the happiness of Heaven. They suffer, for there is no life without suffering. But they also suffer as they should, at the right time, when suffering comes, not in anticipation of it. Knowing how to suffer is a hard lesson to learn. If the terrible hits us and we don’t suffer, something is wrong. How to not cry if fate has made us bleed? If we don’t cry, it’s because our heart, too, is sick, having lost its capacity to feel. But to suffer at the wrong time is also sickness. It lets you get struck by blows that haven’t happened and that only exist as phantasms of the imagination. Animals know how to suffer. We don’t. We are prisoners of anxiety."
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You can download a free excerpt from this book at NLLibrarium.com/alves .