BLOG: Dugdale's resignation and the thankless task of opposition
Leading a political party in opposition is a thankless task. You can oppose, you can propose, but you can't dispose.
Opposition is endless slog, endless frustration, endless impotence.
If you do it well, or the government you oppose flounder, there is a chance of power, a chance to serve, at the end of it.
But even when it appears to be within your grasp, power is never guaranteed. Just ask Neil Kinnock, or Ed Miliband, or Iain Gray, or any number of wannabe Prime Ministers or First Ministers.
And you know what? It may be hard to have perspective when you are at the centre of it, but there is more to life than politics.
Thoughts like these seem to have been going through Kezia Dugdale's head as she contemplated resigning as Scottish Labour leader.
From her resignation letter and the one broadcast interview she has given, it appears she was thinking about her future and her party's prospects.
Her conclusion: It wasn't not worth it for her and therefore in the interests of the party that it should find a new leader.
It's not hard to see why she should come to this conclusion. Labour did make a bit of a come back at the last UK elections, going from one MP to seven.
But remember that this was once the party which dominated Scotland in terms of representation at Westminster, in council chambers and initially at Holyrood too.
With the SNP under Nicola Sturgeon slipping back - it lost 21 of its 56 MPs in the last general election - there was an argument that Labour was on the way back.
However, the picture has been complicated by the rise of the Scottish Conservatives led by Ruth Davidson as the Tories, now the second party in Holyrood and at Westminster exploiting the Unionist vote.
Labour might be on the way back but all the electoral evidence suggest that there was still a long. long road to travel.
On top of that Ms Dugdale has also been weighing up more personal matters.
In a recent interview for Representing Border she spoke of the stress of her relationship breaking up, and the death of her close friend, Gordon Aikman, from Motor Neurone Disease.
However, she also told me that she had put these difficulties behind her and was "in it for the long term". Her aim was to become First Minister. That is now not going to happen.
It will be for someone else to try to revive those hopes for a party which has been struggling to find a role in Scottish politics divided between the left-of-centre SNP, and right-of-centre Conservatives
In terms of a successor, Neil Findlay, the MSP most closely associated with Jeremy Corbyn has said he will not be standing.
But there could still be a contest between a more left-of-centre candidate and someone seen to be more "mainstream", or traditional Labour.
The current deputy leader, now acting leader, Alex Rowley - a Fife MSP with close ties to Gordon Brown - fits the former category but has just told me he will remain as interim leader, which rules him out as a candidate.
Anas Sarwar, a former MP, now a Glasgow MSP - the son of ex-MP Mohammad Sarwar - would fit into the latter category.
Others could yet throw their hats into the ring including possibly Richard Leonard, a Left-leaning MSP and a member of the Campaign for Socialism.
Whoever takes over from Ms Dugdale they face a massive task of rebuilding a party which sometimes still gives the impression of failing to comprehend why it is no longer dominant north of the Border.
The new leader will also have to decide whether votes lie in a more Corbyn-style Left-wing stance, which some say worked at the last UK election, or a more traditional Labour platform with an emphasis on the party's Unionism.
However, whatever direction the new leader chooses they can be sure of one thing: that for several years ahead they will be confined and constrained by the frustrating impotence of opposition.