I don’t know why you’re waking up in the middle of the night. I don’t know if you’re unintentionally insensitive and therefore more likely to accidentally offend someone. I don’t know if, by clinical definition, you are in fact paranoid, but I do know that you’re afraid. You might be wondering why I brought you here but I invite you to absorb what I have to say. Ask deeper questions. Once you get to an answer the paralysis starts to melt away. You will know when your body releases and relaxes. The room you’re in gets brighter, your body feels lighter and, if you’re lucky, you remember what it’s like to be alive. Focused on what will go right, not just what could go wrong. The hardest thing you’ll have to do from here is to nurture this. In the middle and the end, it’s all we’ve got.
Do some people get life wrong? Some look miserable even though a situation is perfect. They are miserable and angry about nothing in particular. Remember, time is precious. You should “corona-know” this by now. We are our harshest critics. But it does not have to be this way. So much of the power we give away to doubt, fear and shame stems from our vanity. We crave for individuality in this sea of humanity and have this instinctual urge to glorify our struggles. We try to convince ourselves that once we have overcome this immediate obstacle in front of us our life will get infinitely better. Guess what? It won’t.
Life and certain tough situations make us more resilient so we can squarely face a harder problem than the one before it. This endless struggle wears us down and we keep feeding the lie of the finish line, a place where there is no adversity. Our constant pursuit, and failure, to arrive here allows this echo chamber of our soul to become polluted with discontent. And this disillusionment marks the beginning of a lifelong “war” some wage with themselves. A war with no end and no purpose other than to reduce our self-worth. Things could be a lot easier.
Goethe said, “Happiness is in overcoming unhappiness. The worst nightmare is a long, long row of sunny days.” But we cannot accept this worldview because it exposes us to the unknown . A journey with no destination. Imagine shining a light at the seat of your soul after a lifetime of darkness only to discover an all-consuming sterile emptiness. There is no broken compass. There is no blind guide. There are no demons. There is only the self and the consequences of the choices you made. “But what if….,” you may ask.
What if the ones we love leave us and take our home and peace, and give us darkness? If we live fighting a war inside of us every day. We are miserable. If we are miserable in a relationship but we stay because of X, Y, and Z which are no real reasons we are afraid of what the future holds. What if the ones who do stay drink from our well of sorrows hoping to fix us but instead drown in our brokenness? Because all we really want is to be free of this one person. And we live blaming ourselves for not being enough for them, too. We can never be enough but just be enough for yourself. What if it just some fake kindness and then they stab us in the back? And we live trying to save us from ourselves and them. What if we cry and there is nobody to hear our suffering? And we live hoping we will be proven wrong but the silence is deafening. What if how we get better is how we are with ourselves when we are alone? And we live becoming a version of us someone special in our life would have been proud of. Like our grandma. Or mother. And then after all of this living, we die believing we mattered for a brief moment in time to someone long enough to be remembered. But did we live? Did we enjoy life to the fullest? Did we love someone unconditionally? Do we even know what love really is and means?
Or think about this: Can someone else’s tragedy open your eyes? A friend of mine got diagnosed with breast cancer and said the other day that, after months of chemotherapy and surgery, doctors have not found new cancer cells in her body. She wants to hug the entire world. Her story moved me. Going through something insane like cancer at this time must be tough and doesn’t this make your own little problems such as being stuck inside for a couple of days/weeks seem like no big deal?
Yesterday I looked out the window and saw a man leading a woman (husband and wife I think) through the deserted street I live in. They were both blind with these vision-impaired badges around their arms. And as my heart began to feel pity for them I saw something remarkable. Both of them had the most splendid smiles on their faces. As he took her hand and carefully navigated their way around he probably said something that made her beam. A joke perhaps to lighten things up. Unfortunately, I was not able to hear it but it must have been beautiful. And I am glad I stood at my window long enough to see this moment unfold. This is love. Simple. Unadorned. Wholesome. Untiring. And guess what? When there is love in your heart, there is nothing to see nor miss. There are no misinterpretations. Only beauty and comfort to enjoy every single day in each other’s company. Love is what I need and get these days.
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