Of course, the poor and the elderly may face the cold in circumstances that do not allow for fortitude.
This winter, though, mopers and year-rounders have reason to face the cold months to come less wistfully.
I left the bus fully prepared to face the cold chill in the air, but with the biggest smile on my face.
It's time to face the cold, hard facts: winter is here, and it's time to close down your warm-weather vacation home.
Flat, windswept and facing the cold North Sea, it has no hidden coves or dramatic cliffs, but it does possess a solemn majesty all of its own.
But with vacation extending into the first week of January, the plan is to ease into the new year with some mildly active fun that won't require facing the cold reality that the holidays are over.
The whole home-furnishings sector of the Web has been in free fall, as entrepreneurs face the cold reality of returned merchandise, the difficulty of ordering and warehousing inventory and the reluctance of manufacturers to undercut their longstanding retailers.
"Iceland must have faced the cold reality that however distasteful they found borrowing from the I.M.F., it was preferable to borrowing from Russia," said Mr. Rogoff, also a former chief economist at the fund.
"Anxiety is really, really difficult because anxiety is about the unknown," says psychologist Webster, who suggests instead that people just face the cold, hard fact that they can't know the unknown.
