Fear, anxiety, loneliness, discomfort, pain, jitters, or whatever you’re going through is an expensive experience.
It can fuck with your health, your mood, your motivation, and your productivity. It can even mess with your ability to be around other people.
I can’t promise to make it feel better. There are plenty of crooks who you can throw your money at for that. What I can promise is this: you have limitless power to make that shit even worse.
Comparison is the thief of joy, and if you’re having a rough patch, looking at the lives of others will not help. Everyone is going through what they’re going through, but many still get up and keep their lives moving; those folks are called adults. Observing everyone on the surface, then comparing what you see to what you’re feeling deep inside is a guaranteed method of sinking yourself even lower.
This is not to say find consolation in the fact that others have bullshit as well, but more to realize that maybe bullshit is just a part of life. Life doesn’t start after the obstacles; life is the obstacles.
A carefree, stress-free, all-problems-get-solved-within-twenty-two-minutes type of life exists ONLY on television. To begin with, most of the things we call problems aren’t even problems, they’re dilemmas. These dilemmas are generally attributed to our ample leisure time in the first world. Folks in other situations rarely have the luxury to ponder or stress about many of the things we do, mainly because they’re too busy surviving (cue Jim Jefferies singing “Don’t Die Today”).
It’s not my place to evaluate the things that keep you up at night or cause you anxiety. I have, however, realized in my time on this planet that outside of actual death (and a few other exceptions), the intensity of our problems is the simple marriage of our circumstance with our mindset. Sometimes you can’t change the circumstances, but you can ALWAYS change your mindset. (If at this point you said, “Easier said than done, Humble,” you owe me $5.)
Death itself is the one sure-shot promise so there’s really no point in worrying about that. We all have that in common.
I’m not writing this for you, I’m writing this for me. My molars hurt because I’ve been grinding my teeth in my sleep. It’s a sign of stress. From what? A bunch of stuff and people that won’t matter in ninety years and rarely exist in my present. It’s the memories of a past and fears of the future causing that stress. Anything that isn’t in the present is simply a product of my imagination (downside to the overthinker).
No empathy needed, it’s what we all go through. It’s uncomfortable, but that’s where growth lives.
There’s no growth in your comfort zone, there’s no comfort in your growth zone. It’s not a Venn diagram and there’s no happy medium.
Whatever you’re going through, go through it, learn from it, and grow from it. You won’t be here forever.