I'm feeling a little on the introspective side today, so bear with me.
Life is rarely what I expect it to be. It definitely is because I have terribly unrealistic expectations of literally everything. I have a bad habit of getting way too excited about an event or anything really and then when life doesn't match up to my unrealistic expectations I get really disappointed. It's ridiculous, I know, and it's certainly all my own fault. It's just that when I get excited about something I can't not be excited. It usually comes to the point where I have to keep reminding myself to not get too excited because I don't want to be let down by my insane expectations.
Disappointment is hard. I mean, it's never fun when you have a picture of what life should look like in your head and despite your best efforts you can't get the two to match up. Sometimes despite your normal happy demeanor - you're sad, and it's difficult to be un-sad. Brokenness can come in a variety of different ways and more often than not there is no distinct way to navigate it. Thats frustrating. How does one find joy in the middle of sadness, or peace in the middle of disappointment, or hope in the middle of monotony?
Sometimes the only feasible answer is to keep going, keep living. I will disclaim that I'm not talking about running your self thin to distract yourself from whatever difficulties you may be facing, thats simply not healthy or smart. For goodness sake, please take care of yourself, and don't just shove everything down to the point where you become numb. What I'm really talking about here, is the day to day.
I've had a few moments in life where I had to keep reminding myself that if I don't feel like caring, I need to just care for 5 more minutes. Sometimes you just have to push yourself a little bit further to get where you need to be. Kimmy Schmidt* put it this way: Take it ten seconds at a time. If your sad, sometimes the only answer is to find something that makes you happy for five more minutes. If your stressed, find something that you can get off your plate and work on that for five more minutes. If your in the middle of something that keeps disappointing you, find something that brings your confidence back and focus on that for five more minutes.
Sometimes you have to keep on...
Dreaming.
Working.
Smiling.
Fighting.
Hoping.
Trusting.
Living.
Even if it's just for 5 more minutes.
It's kind of funny how no matter what you do, life still happens one day at a time. Sometimes you have a string of days that are hard, but eventually you lay in bed one night and you realize that your day wasn't all that terrible. Things start to get progressively better after a storm, even though it may take a while.
Just keep on the journey, okay?
*If you don't know who this is, or what I'm talking about, set aside the next 8 or so hours of your life and binge watch Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt on Netflix. It's good.