At what cost do we get used to things?

A quote from Jose Saramago's The Cave.

And if, at that moment, Marta had asked, What will you do with your life when we leave, she would perhaps have replied as calmly as she had before, I'll get used to it. 

Yes, we often hear it said, or we say it ourselves, I'll get used to it, we say or they say, with what seems to be genuine acceptance, because there really isn't any other way, at least none has yet been discovered, of expressing in as dignified a way as possible our sense of resignation, what no one asks is at what cost do we get used to things.* 

Saramago, Jose. The Cave.  (Margaret Jull Costa, trans.) New York: Harcourt, Inc., 2002, p. 213.

(*) Emphasis is mine. -M.Z.