My Brain's Not Broken

As I said on Tuesday, this will be a difficult week. One of the things about a difficult week is that even though it’s a lot to handle because of one specific thing, the world doesn’t stop spinning. I’m not saying the world moves on, but other things happen during that week that demand our attention.

For instance, Monday was Holocaust Remembrance Day. There is no way to overestimate the importance of this day of commemoration, which is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The week continued with Bell Let’s Talk Day in Canada, a mental health initiative that promised to raise 5 cents for every tweet, and interaction with a tweet, mentioning #BellLetsTalk. There were more than 150 million interactions yesterday, raising more than 7 million dollars (I wrote about this event last year for a little more context).

There are plenty of other important things happening this week, but those two, in particular, grabbed my attention because they are days I circle on my calendar every year. They are important to me. But in a week where it’s difficult to keep our heads above water, these two days almost got me. You have enough days like that and you became more jaded and discouraged when you think about how tough the world can be.

So what do we do in a tough time?

There’s plenty of action items and things I could say here, but honestly, it comes down to one thing: we push through. And we keep pushing through until we’ve made it through that tough stretch of time. More tough times will come in the future, and we’ll have to push through those too. Because tough times don’t last; tough people do.

We all have our own ways of doing this, but it’s important that we keep trying to push through. I could hit you with every cliche in the book. The light at the end of the tunnel, the view from the mountaintop after a hard climb, God giving his hardest battles to his toughest soldiers. If that motivates you, good! Go for it. If it doesn’t, there are other ways.

When I’m going through a difficult time, I don’t always want things to be ‘good’ again; I just want them to be better than they are at the time. And at this moment, I believe they will be one day. Things will get better. I don’t think about how beautiful the view will be from the mountaintop; I make sure I see my steps when I’m climbing.

Some days may be good. Other days, not so good. But life is not linear. There is not a steady upward trajectory. But by pushing through, you’re giving yourself a chance. And those chances are moments that could change your life. You can’t always see it at the time – I know I haven’t – but maybe you will one day. And you’ll appreciate the fact that you pushed through.