At the risk of being entirely cheesy, I’m just going to put this out here: Life is socool. There is so much beauty in this world that goes unnoticed and unrecognized. All too often, we make it too easy to disregard the positivity in the world because of how small it may look in the shadow of all of the negative things. I get it. All you have to do is turn on your television to know that bad things are happening at all times in all places in all manners. It’s scary, and though it may not always be occurring on your stomping grounds or affect you directly, it is so, so real.
Side note: This is your daily reminder. Before you even continue reading the rest of this blog post, stop and pray for those people and those places right now. Nepal, Baltimore, North Africa, the Middle East, Ukraine, and all of our nation’s leaders. They need it. We all need it.
And whenever you find yourself sad, with a loss of assurance, or forgetting all of the things there are to love in this world, try to take a minute to think about how this place is actually brimming with hope. There are good people in this world who breathe the same air that you do. Remind yourself that there is still magic in the way that someone laughs way too loud, in the confidence of the girl that’s overcoming doubt and depression, in the moment that it’s so easy to be enamored by a total stranger in your favorite coffee shop, in the comfort of laying your head on a pillow after a long day, in the myriad of ways that people choose to convey their thoughts and emotions, in the cliche, predictable ending of a romantic comedy, in the idea that at this very moment someone is getting their first kiss, having their first child, getting baptized, or falling in love. There is still magic in the notion that we, every single one of us, is nowhere near done being loved yet, and someday we will find people who want to hold onto us as tight and as much as we don’t want to let go of them. Wow. There’s beauty in that. Magic. So much of it, actually, in the prospect that there is so much left to experience and to discover. And I know, I know that it can all seem so very small — that these things feel like insufficient nothings when you compare them to a loved one’s death, watching hatred fill city streets and corrupt minds, or feeling lonely in a place full of people who are supposed to care. But the wonderful thing is that the light is always there, even if you have to squint your eyes or spend hours searching your mind for one good thing. Keep looking. I promise that it’s there.
And to be fair, I know that there are days when you may feel like you can hardly carry on. When your heart sincerely aches for so many people that you may not ever be able to wrap your arms around on this side of Heaven, but there is never a day that passes when we aren’t given the choice to be grateful for having so many chances to live, and much more than that, to enjoy living. In other words, on days like today, there’s nothing wrong with loving the crap out of everything and everyone, even if it means never getting any type of affection in return.
In sum, you will experience everything — every emotion will be a part of your life at some point, in one form or another: the good, the bad, the kind that you didn’t even know existed and you don’t have a name for… There’s really no use in trying to avoid situations and experiences, no matter how inconvenient the timing will be. Because the truth is that the time will always be inconvenient. You will never hear terrible news, hit heartbreak or reassurance or a have a bad moment at the ideal time of day or year; they will come from around the corner, out of the blue or seem to drop from out of the sky. Life is not something you get to set aside for the future, it’s something that you have to learn to deal with, in all of its capacity, right now. No matter how difficult it is to deal with, the thing to do is figure it out right now. To appreciate right now. To love right now. To pray right now. To hope right now. To give right now. Whether it’s love, friendship, school, family: the time is right now.