Life is beautiful.
But I’ll tell you what it isn’t. It’s never simple. It’s never so simple that you don’t have to think about it. It’s never so calm that you don’t have to hold on.
Real life is messy. If it’s not, you’re wasting it. Life is terror and joy; panic and victory. There’s clutter, and chaos, and moments of beautiful harmony where the notes all play together and the melody becomes clear.
Until it fades again into random noise, and the light dims, and once again you’re searching in the darkness trying to make sense of what just happened, and all of what could be.
There’s pain and pleasure, silence and thunder, eternities and instants, all wrapped up in a sequence of events where you can’t remember the start, and you have no idea where or if there is ever an ending.
You’ll love, lose, care and feel like you’ve never known, and you’ll know heartache, heartbreak and loss.
The times that you think you know what’s happening next are the times where you’ll stand amazed, and the times when you are lost, you’ll find a light in the darkness to show you the way home.
There will be days when you will never sleep, and days when all you want to do is fade out. You will find people who treat you better than you could ever hope, and those who will treat you like you never would.
In the midst of the struggle you will find the strength you never knew existed, and in the midst of the calm you will experience the thrill of knowing that you survived another storm.
This life is a game, and there are days where you win, and days where you lose. Times when the only way is up, and times when you are so raised up that you’ll never see how you could come down.
We spend far too much of our energy focusing on the problems, and far too little seeing all the beauty, majesty, wonder and kindness in the world.
The secret of life is simple to learn, but so hard to master.
Be grateful, be a healer, be the person you know you can despite all that says you can’t. Don’t give in to hatred, don’t give into fear. Don’t be afraid of your strength, and don’t worry about your weaknesses. We all have them. It’s what makes us human.
Whoever you are, wherever you are, your life is a precious gift. Who cares if it’s not what you thought; it’s better than it could be.
Please stop wasting time being anyone other than you. Be you. 100%. Live, laugh, love, care, cry, console, commiserate, scream, shout. Just be the very best you that you can.
And most of all be kind.
Now run, and remember.
-- Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings