Everything I’ve learned about life I can sum up in three words: It goes on. -Robert Frost
For many of us, it takes many years of grasping and holding onto things before we realize that to survive, we have to learn to let go. The task of letting go and just “being” can seem daunting when all our lives we are told who we need to be and what we need to do to make it in life. From early on, we are conformed to society’s standards. Anyone who marches to the beat of a different drum is considered radical or worse, insane, when in fact those few people who have the courage to stand against the norm are the ones who will change the world. It has always been that way, it has always fallen to the unique and the visionaries to do what the majority says can’t be done. Anyone who ever did anything revolutionary was faced with and indeed met many obstacles and challenges. The characters with the most profound depth have been through pain, suffering, fear, and confusion so many times that those who have not truly lived may wonder how these characters survived.
That’s what life is though. As it is said in the Tao Te Ching, you cannot truly know happiness and beauty without first knowing pain and suffering. Anyone who has not experienced hardship cannot fully appreciate what it means to be alive and be happy. It is through times of suffering and fear that we develop our strength of character. These times show us our true nature, and often expose us to a realization of a strength we never knew we had. When we rise above the trials of life, we emerge with a new found strength and a deep understanding of the meaning of things. We begin to accept that life has its ups and downs, and that nothing lasts forever. When we realize this, we can finally begin to grow with a new found hope and outlook on life.
We are in this world to learn and grow. Every life we have lived here in the past served to teach us lessons our souls need to reach enlightenment. Through every hardship and struggle we have ever endured and ever will in the future we grow and gain wisdom about ourselves and the nature of existence. Everything happens for a reason, and that reason is always for our highest good, whether it seems that way or not. We attract into our lives the lessons we most need at every point in our time here. Nothing happens by accident, everything we go through is a chance to grow and gain wisdom and strength for the better. Our creators and our higher consciousness always know what we need, even if we don’t understand in our mundane consciousness.
“Whatever relationships you have attracted in your life at this moment, are precisely the ones you need in your life at this moment. There is a hidden meaning behind all events, and this hidden meaning is serving your own evolution.”― Deepak Chopra
The point is, life has its ups and downs. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t get anywhere. If life was a utopia, we would never learn anything or gain strength of character. I am not speaking as somebody who just writes about hardships without ever having been through anything, just to act as a bystander “expert” on life. I am writing as someone who has endured real struggles, and who wants to tell others from experience that it will be ok. Sometimes the pain of life will seem unbearable, you will want to give up, you may even want to disappear. I want to tell you, don’t give up. Its not going to be easy, it was never suppose to be easy. But it will be worth it. Someday you will emerge from your struggles as a new person, stronger and brighter than ever before. There is nothing like real suffering and challenge to show us, when we overcome it, the true beauty of life. When you overcome your struggles and fear, you begin to see with brand new eyes. Suddenly you notice the beauty in the smallest, most “mundane” things in life. You develop a real compassion for everything and everyone around you. You see the divine in everything and find yourself filled with a deep respect and reverence for all things.
Life will go on, no matter how impossible that seems sometimes. Embrace the challenges, those times of hardship and fear are the times that develop our true strength and make us into amazing and profound characters. “Everything will be ok in the end, and if its not ok, its not the end.”-Unknown
Primordial EarthSky 