Life is hard. When each one of us was brought into this world, everyone tried to shield us from the inevitable– heartbreak, loss, failure, despair– it was almost as if our parents had built a wall around us. When we were young, the wall kept out monsters, zombies, and all of the frightful things that emerged in our heads at night. As we started school, the wall began to crumble piece by piece, allowing in demons of all kinds. Bullies, unfair teachers, and backstabbing friends all started breaking pieces down off of the wall that was so strongly built before. Family members and friends who never should have hurt us, did. Lovers who always swore they’d never cheat on us, did. By the time high school and college rolled around, the only evidence left of that wall even once existing was the dust on the ground.
We as humans have a terrible time accepting defeat and getting over heartbreaking situations. It feels as if the world is just going to collapse and crumble beneath your two feet, as if you’ll never be able to survive what’s consuming your constant thoughts. Every concern you have and every saddening chapter of your book is valid. There are huge problems in the world like world hunger and war, yes, but those things don’t invalidate your own troubles. There will never be anything so catastrophic that could ever make your sadness or hurt feelings invalid. You are allowed to feel the way you feel, and no one stands in any position to tell you otherwise. So what your problems aren’t “as serious” as the person’s standing next to you? Grief is grief. Get angry, get upset, cry it out. It’s okay to curl into a ball some nights and just let out all of life’s frustrations. Don’t judge yourself for being human.
That being said, don’t dwell too much on the past. If it won’t matter in a week, month, or year from now, let it go. Cry it out, be upset, then learn to move past it. There’s no use in holding onto toxicity that won’t even affect you a year from now. I can’t even tell you how many things in middle school and high school that I sulked for years over, and now that I’m in college, a lot of those things couldn’t matter even if I wanted them to. You won’t remember every heartbreak, you won’t remember every failed test, and you won’t remember every broken friendship, so don’t waste good years beating yourself up about it.
My mentality hasn’t always been this optimistic. I once saw the world in black and white– I could either be happy or I could be sad at this very moment in time, but never both. I realized, however, that it’s not quite the case. You’re allowed to enjoy a day at the park with your dog even if you just got horrible news that morning. You’re allowed to laugh at your favorite TV show without feeling guilty because you don’t think you should feel any happiness during such a hard time in your life.
A lot of times, we get put into funks that just seem absolutely impossible to get out of. You may not even know why you’ve felt sad for the past few weeks, you just do. You’ll learn to climb out of those ruts. Finding happiness in the small things in life can make all the difference. A beautiful day, a colorful sunset, sipping coffee without a time constraint to be somewhere else in the morning, or a hug from someone you love are all reasons to smile. We all judge our happiness based off of how we feel in clumped periods of time, but why? There is good in every day, we just have to open our hearts to find it. No matter what is going on in your life right now, I challenge you to find at least one thing amazing about every single day. There’s always something.
Coming from a person who has had experience with many elements of despair through life, I can personally tell you that it gets better. I went from a depressed teenager who didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning to face the day to a young adult who is now thriving and happy. It feels like the end of the world, but it’s not. It doesn’t have to be. It’s all up to you. Of course you’ll always have bad days, everyone does, but that’s a part of life. How else would you appreciate the good days if there weren’t bad days to make you more grateful? From every bad time in your life, dozens of lessons are learned along the way to help you later on down the road. You learn who you are, what kinds of people to surround yourself with, and warnings signs for things you should take caution in.
Take this as a sign if you’re in need of one: it will get better. Allow yourself to come out of that slump, really work on you, and change the way you see the world. You won’t always feel this hopeless unless you prevent yourself from seeing the brighter side of things. There’s a lot in life that we can’t control, and there’s a lot of heartache that comes as baggage with those uncontrollables; but, with the right mindset, you can get through anything.
