We all have desires that unite us.

We want to be found.

We want peace.

We want love.

We want hope.

We want success.

We want to be okay.

We don’t want to be alone.

We want the good life.

We search, and we search, and we search some more. And sometimes, we find something. Some spark, some speck of glimmering hope, some fraction of love or some glimpse of the threshold of having it all. And we cling to that, to those possibilities. It is comforting, in a way – that the future can be good. That around the corner, even if our eyes are shut, something wonderful can break through and hit us – change us. Something mesmerizing can maybe cleanse us and keep us and find us. And through this search, through this truth, we sometimes lose something.

Ourselves.

We forget that, although the future holds promises of truth and of love, who we are today, this very moment, is enough.

Who we are this very split second does not need to be changed in order for us to be whole.

Although it is simple to find the future as a source of comfort, we must remember to be proud of where we are at in our lives right now; we must focus on the comfort of the present as well. Surely, it is not perfect. But it is perfectly imperfect.

We make mistakes and we fall down. We have pain and we have flaws. We go through times where we lose sight of ourselves and sometimes lose sight of even the hope of tomorrow. And that is okay. That does not mean we have failed. As bizarre as it may sound, it is a mark of great success. Our imperfections do not mean failure, but rather completion; they are a beautiful mark of humanity.

Maybe we have not checked off the items that society defines as having success, but our life is proof enough that we belong. It is time to be proud of the air that we breathe through our lungs. It is time to be proud of our personalities and our opinions. It is time to be proud of our mistakes that lead us to become stronger individuals in time. It is time to be proud of our beating hearts.

Although we must not forget the beauty of the future, we also must not forget the beauty of now. Sure, we hope to complete certain aspects of our lives in the future. We may hope to have a steady job, a home, and a family. But we also must remember that, even without those future possessions, who we are now is something to be proud of, too. We already have what we need. And even in our mistakes and imperfections, we are still complete.

There’s something we need to remember, and it’s something that’s all too easy to forget: we are enough. We are all messes. But we are all spectacular messes. Right now, this very instant, we are not broken. We are beautiful.