King isn't simply telling us to stay optimistic—he's making a harder claim about what we're *allowed* to feel. Notice the permission in "must accept": disappointment isn't weakness or lack of faith, it's inevitable, even necessary to acknowledge. The real tension lies in holding both truths at once—yes, you will fail at things that matter to you, and yes, you can still believe in transformation. When someone loses a job after years of loyal work, they don't need false cheerfulness; they need permission to grieve the loss while genuinely believing better circumstances exist. That's the arithmetic King offers: total honesty about what is, paired with unwavering conviction about what might be.