In the Most Desperate of Times When There Seems to Be No Hope, Just Live

Your power to choose is your power to make all the difference

Sometimes we wonder what our life’s really worth

We wonder whether we’re fulfilling our purpose or not. Why do we wake up each morning? Why do we work so hard to make a living?

Will someone even notice all the things that we say and do? Will someone even miss us when we’re gone?

As we go on thinking about these things, we try to imagine the future. Will it be better tomorrow? Are we ever going to find what our hearts have been searching for?

Meanwhile, everything in the present seems to bother us. We can’t find satisfaction wherever we turn. We keep on stressing ourselves to prove our value. We work day and night without reaping the rewards we desire.

Days like that, you may feel like quitting

Days like that, you may feel as though you want to escape where no one could see you or bother you. You want to go where you need not carry the weight of the past nor the anxiety of the future.

But no place comes to mind. You feel trapped. You feel helpless. Why go on? What’s the point of it all? What’s the fruit of all your labors?

The truth is that it is difficult to think about an immediate escape when you’re in that state of mind. No solution will be in sight. No time machine can alter the past. No magic formula can provide the answers to your worries.

The truth is that many times, we can’t see everything

We try to predict things as they have happened in the past. As they have wounded us and disappointed us in the past. But things don’t always happen that way.

Things happen without our knowing. We’re often mistaken when it comes to our fears. In the first place, it is our fears that cause us to make mistakes. We can’t see clearly because our vision is blurred by our worries. Sometimes, it is our worries that even create the very things we fear.

So on days like that, maybe it’s better not to look so far ahead. When darkness is all you could see, it is better to stop there rather than to keep on looking for monsters that await you in the dark.

On days like that, maybe it’s better to rest. When you have exhausted your strength and you have come upon your limits, it is better to replenish your powers rather than to drain yourself and find no hope for moving on.

Things change

What you never thought would happen could happen. What you couldn’t accomplish could be done by someone else.

Someone else can pave the way for you. Someone else can open the door.

But you can’t enter it if you chose to give up. You can’t walk on that path if you never chose to wait.

So wait. For a brand new day. For a brand new start.

And on days when all you could see is a bleak future, try not to look so far ahead.

Just live. Just breathe. Just carry on.

Many things can still happen in your life. Many people can still touch your life and take you to places you have never been to.

Just live.

Live and wait with hope

Live and rest when you can no longer carry on. Live and cry all you want when things don’t go as planned.

But live. Live so you can cry again. Live so you can have the chance to smile again.

You don’t know what one more day can bring. What one more moment can accomplish. Sometimes things can change so much in an instant you wonder why things have never been that way all along.

Just live.

Though not all things can change in a moment, many things can happen gradually until you see the very fruits you have desired for so long.

Many things happen beyond our knowing. Many things happen beyond our own control. Even in days so bleak, we could hardly imagine a better future. Even in days so painful, we could hardly hope for days of joy.

So just live. Live and take the chance to see another day.

Just live.

Even if you may experience far tougher times before the better times. Even if your heart would break yet again before it can finally be whole.

Just live.

Give yourself the chance to wait for change. Give yourself the chance to change.

One day, your life may completely turn around and you’d wonder how everything could have fallen into place without your knowing. One day, you’d be so happy you’d forget the many times that you have cried. One day, you may just be grateful that you have given yourself that chance, and you have lived.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”― Rainer Maria Rilke

Have you ever wondered how no sunrise has ever been the same as the one before? This is the promise of life: the promise of hope and a new beginning with the rising of a brand new day.

Life is a series of many beginnings

We do not witness merely one sunrise, but a series of mornings that conquer the night again and again.

We may grow tired, but we are renewed. We may yield to sleep, but we are awakened. We may fall, but we rise again.

We live through many mornings that shower us with new blessings and new hope. Mornings that remind us it is never the darkness that has the final say. It is never death, but life.

“I will look forward
to each sunrise
hoping…
For who knows?
This may just be the day
when miracles
happen
once more!”

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
    his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
    “therefore I will hope in him.”
- Lamentations 3:22-24, NRSVCE

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