It's the "bad things come in threes," "Murphy's Law," "no good deed goes unpunished" kind of times. One thing that we all have in common is that sooner or later, we all face trials and tribulations in life when the good times turn bad and the bad times become worse.
We all wonder why bad things happen to good people or why when one part of life seems to be falling to pieces, three more parts dismantle themselves and we find that we've hit rock bottom... Then rock bottom drops out beneath us and we realize that wherever we were previously was more like a rocky ceiling than it was rock bottom because somehow, we managed to fall even further.
Through trials and tribulations, we notice that how we handle what happens to us determines our quality of life more so than what happens to us does. I think it's important to note the guilt that a lot of us feel when bad things happen and we convince ourselves that our situation isn't worth getting upset about because we know someone else going through much more.
I've always felt that if something gets you upset or off balanced, then it's worth acknowledging its significance and giving that trial or tribulation the attention it needs so that you can work through it. By suppressing the feelings and not recognizing and accepting them, we are dragging out the pain and physically preventing our bodies from healing itself from our current situation.
Nobody knows what or how you're feeling except for you so if you're losing hair and that's incredibly upsetting to you then so be it. Though it may seem trivial compared to other's trials, this is what you are currently dealing with and it's up to you to decide how to handle it. It's important to put these situations in perspective and be grateful for what you do have but giving yourself permission to work through even the smallest bump, is okay too.
If you're experiencing a brake-up or you recently lost your job or didn't get into med school your first time around, don't beat yourself up for being upset even though your cousin just called and informed you of a severe health issue they were recently diagnosed with.
We are all fighting battles. Each and every one of us. Unfortunately, with the way social media is these days, it's hard to know what anyone is truly going through since we tend to highlight, edit and enhance the best part of our life. Focusing on what is good in our life is incredibly powerful but so is vulnerability too.
Though this conversation is nothing new and blog posts that are written on this topic pop up almost as frequently and obnoxiously as google smart ads (for the random lotion you looked at once on Amazon) do, it is what happened to be on my heart when I sat down to write this.
I read a quote recently that said: "The same boiling water that softens the potato hardens the egg. It's about what you're made of, not the circumstance."
So, be an egg or be a potato, but no matter what you choose, I hope this serves as a reminder to be gentle with yourself and know that your time at the trial and tribulation station won't last forever. After all, trains aren't meant to stay in one place.