The words “otherwise’ and ‘avoid’ can be replaced by:

“ Bad things are going to happen, and that’s the way the cookie crumbles according to one the most common sayings out there. But while dwelling on past losses can prolong your pain, suppressing your emotions can be even worse. As reported in ‘The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking’, “Bereaved people who make the most effort to avoid feeling grief take the longest to recover from their loss.” Or, to put it in more lactosetolerant terms, “Sometimes we should cry over spilled milk,” philosopher Aaron Ben-Zeév writes, “otherwise how will we learn to value milk and how will we avoid spilling it again?”

(9 Common Sayings That Are Actually Total Nonsense. By Brandon Specktor. Reader’s Digest. Available in https://www.rd.com/culture/common-sayings-total-nonsense/)