Here Is What You Need To Know When Life Is Too Hard

Life is messy.

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Some days are going to be really hard. Harder than you’d ever anticipated. These will be the days when you choke back tears when you stub your toe. Days when you sit staring at your computer screen at work, trying so hard not to cry. And you don’t even know what you’re sad about. These will be the days when the world feels too heavy, and nothing makes sense. When you’re living in a fog. When these days come up, just try your hardest to make it through. Try to appreciate even one tiny thing, even if it’s just a warm cup of cozy coffee. Try to smile once, even if it’s at something menial, and even if the smile doesn’t reach your eyes. Just do what you can on the rough days. Sometimes the best we can do is just survive, and hope for a better day tomorrow.

When life is hard, and you are feeling lost, remember that love is abundant. Life gives us infinite love. There will be times when love comes naturally, intuitively. Yet, there will also be times when love feels less fulfilling, and when loving yourself feels more like a chore or an obligation than it does a gift. At times your heart is going to ache, and you will have a pit in your stomach that lasts for what feels like an eternity, because you will believe that love is gone. But you will also find that there will be times when you will laugh until you cry, and times when your heartbeat will reassure you that you are surrounded by love.  Keep being patient and keep continuing to wait for these times. Keep searching for love even when you feel like love is lost. And know that self love is just as powerful as love for someone else.

Stories end, and sometimes endings are unavoidable. Though at first endings may feel like a punch in the gut, know that quite often, endings are rerouting you into new directions. When things fall apart, look for the windows. Look for the doors. Look for a way out, and seek a new beginning. What’s coming will be better than what’s been lost. And at some point, you have to stop fighting the past and start fighting for the present.

There will be times when you will not get the closure you desire, times when you will have to fathom up the courage to create your own ending. You will have to search deep within yourself to try to make peace with your broken heart, and to believe that everything really does happen for a reason. You will have to muster up enough faith to believe in silver linings, and to know that although this love was great, this love was not your greatest love story. There’s a greater love for you out there, and now you have the freedom to find it.

Life is messy and love is messy. But despite the mess, life will give you exactly what you need if you let it. Don’t get so caught up in the bad that you don’t make space for the good. Don’t let one bad day drag you down. One bad moment doesn’t mean a bad life. Just because you are crying today, doesn’t mean that you are going to feel this way for the rest of the month, or year. Feelings are like the moon. They change and move through phases. It’s okay to feel sad. Just as long as you know that sadness is a phase and that it is not permanent.

At the end of the day, all you need to do is your best. It’s all you really can do. And your best doesn’t have to be perfect. Your best doesn’t have to be gold medal worthy. Somedays, your best is going to be a day full of accomplishments and reaching your goals, and getting things done. But other days, your best is going to be brushing your teeth, washing your face, and watching Netflix for the majority of the day. And that’s the best you can do. Both of these are okay. You don’t need to judge yourself on the days when you are less productive. You are doing the best you can with the cards you’ve been given.

When times are hard, make sure you continue to love. Continue to share your heart. Continue to give. And continue to cherish the little things. You still have so much life to live. So much time for things to get better. You don’t need to hold yourself hostage to the person you used to be, or the way you used to feel. Nor should you. Life is wonderful, and then it’s terrible, and then it is wonderful again. In the blink of an eye. Trust that it will get better. Know that it will get better. And above all, stay in your magic. Things will be okay again soon. I promise. Thought Catalog Logo Mark