When troubles descend on us, we often say”why me”? Its but natural to rant and rave. After all who doesn’t want the perfect life? And when things are going well because after all we have put in the hours/sweat/blood and tears; so this must be the time to celebrate and reap rich harvests – right? Then why oh why do things start to go wrong just as they begin to fall into place?
After years of being single, alone and watching everyone you know get married; you finally find someone to fall in love with, get married and then boom – it all blows up in your face!
or
You have settled down into holy matrimony, put away a tidy savings and its time for you to quit to plan a baby as your partner is ready – both emotionally and financially to handle the responsibility; but you are not able to conceive now.
or
You land the perfect job with just the right hours and salary and of course the right brand when you realise that you will have to sleep with your superiors to progress further.
Sounds familiar -right? I know there can be many more variations of these scenarios but in sum total this is the gist of all our lives. Everytime the chips fall into place and we get ready to cash out, life throws a curve that we just didn’t see coming.
“Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told,” I am with you, kid. Lets go.” – Maya Angelou
Ups and downs are part and parcel of our lives – no matter how much we may procrastinate or run away from it, this is not going to go away.
In my over four decades of life, there is one immutable law of life that I have been able to decipher and that is “this too shall pass”. I have made this my mantra to chant in times of trouble for I have realised that no matter how much I resist, the trouble still comes into my life. And I am the only one who can make it go away by handling it. I may not do it perfectly or even get it right the first time around but trust me its My trouble and only My solution works on it.
Do you know why that is? Because one size does not fit all. Puzzled? Ok let me simplify it.
Each one of us is given one measure of life that is ours and our alone. All the choices we make, paths we take and decisions we make – each one does as per their sensibilities and priorities. Because each one of us is unique and so are the “troubles” we get.
This is because each one has their own unique bandwidth to sustain shit. Each one has been given the strength to battle out their own melodramas in life. So while one person may feel others are luckier than her; others might feel she is luckier than them.
Trust me, we each get our own level of ups and down and none is luckier or unluckier than the other. Its our strength/Karma that decides the shittiness of our troubles. The wise folks say that troubles are the Universe’s way to better our present life in order to getting to a higher one in the next life.
I say troubles are life’s endeavour to keep us from getting complacent. To not forget gratitude for everything we have got in our life. Troubles are the lessons we need to think about others and share what we can – love, resources, thoughts, etc and lend a helping hand where we can.
And every trouble gets sorted in due course of time; the trick is to keep our head and not forget to give thankfulness to the divine for everything else that is there.
“Nothing is permanent in this wicked world, not even our troubles.” – Charlie Chaplin
Whats your trick to handle shit in your life? Love to hear your thoughts on my take on this.
Linking with Corinne for #MondayMusings
Linking with Macglanville for the #mg linky party
This is just what I needed to read today, Shalz! This is the first post of the day that I am reading, and THE one I needed to read. Just the other day, I posted on my Instagram this quote :This too shall pass”….to remind myself that whatever I am going through right now, will soon be a thing of the past. It’s just that the waiting period between the tough times and the good times takes its toll and we lose hope, and patience. And, it’s in these times that we need to hear such words, as these in your post.
So, thank you, my dear friend…perfect timing! 😛
Love you! And, hugs!
How happy your comment has made me Shilpa; this is why I write. To have my reader connect to my words is such a brilliant high! Thank you so much for this!
I am delighted to hear that my post has helped you – may you get through this storm with the calm that I know you have within you! Loads of love and wishes my friend!! 🙂
<3 And, to you too!
I pretty much believe in the same philosophy. This too shall pass. And count your blessings. Moments when it all gangs up on me are the hardest but working on being thankful and moving forward even when I am physically, emotionally and mentally out of sorts with everything that is going on
More power to your thoughts Namy; thank you so much for your wise comment here!
God gives us the battles we can win and we choose our headache.In the end nothing matters.Lovely post and everything will pass!
So true! Thanks Amzee 🙂
That’s so true! Just what I needed today. It is hard sometimes to deal with the blows that life throws at us but we have to be strong!
Thanks so much Reema; glad to hear you could connect to my words. Hope whatever thats been plaguing you blows over quickly! 🙂
I think being grateful matters and rather than asking why me, we should ask why not me. No matter how much the downside of life hurts us, it equips us to emerge stronger as we look back to the tough times. Interesting discussion brought to the fore.
Thats a great peice of advice Vishal; thanks so much for connecting with me on this post. 🙂
I couldn’t agree more, Shalini. Now, all these years I have been battling this out in my own head and trying to come to terms with my share of bad days but now, I find it very very challenging when my son comes to me and asks me why life can be so unfair at times and why somedays when we really have plans in place, things wont work out. I can argue with my own logic and find a solution for myself but dealing with a 13-year-old and trying to tell him that life IS unfair and that at times we have nothing else to do but to face up to this proving extremely challenging to me right now.
Awww Esha that can be a bit tough to handle and hats off to all of you mommies for handling such questions. Its pretty tough to make children understand and their disappointment is so heart breaking to see!! Wish you tonnes of strength to get through with it everytime.
Life throws curve balls. When things are not going the right way, expressing gratitude can also become difficult. One way to deal with this is to search within what is there that life is trying to teach me about myself through this. I believe when one has overcome a difficult phase even for once in life, it changes the manner one gets to see the downsides.
Thats such a mature perspective to keep Anamika; I must take a leaf out of your book to evaluate my tough times and how I handle them.
This too shall pass- playing by this mantra in good times and bad is what helps immensely. Its really tough to deal with unexpected turns and emerge out of them stronger and hopeful but hope is all we have – and unless we believe in ourselves, not much will change
Thanks Aks- its helped me the most to battle my crisis everytime now. It is indeed very tough to go through them and manage to stay afloat everytime.
This is so true. I love the positive attitude reflecting in our words…. 🙂
Welcome Maniparna; so good to have you on my blog and thanks for your lovely comment! Glad I could make you feel good with my words 🙂
Enjoyed your post… 🙂
Thanks so much for the kind words. Liked your blog too and have marked it to follow for further posts.
My mantra too ! In fact when times are bad , I lie still and just wait for the bad days to go. Often if I have to take a decision, I sleep over it . One thing I always do is avoid negative people at such times
Oh yes sleeping over a decision is the wisest and I often do remember to do it; it feels thats when I have the better response to whatever the trouble was. Often I just jump into it and then regret later.
This to shall pass . . it is so true. Sometimes it seems we will never get over something or through sometime, but we have more inner strength than we resale. I arelly enjoyed this post, very wise. So happy you could join in with the #mg link up party
Thanks so much MG – its my pleasure to join in your awesome linkup and I hope to stay connected with it more often! Yes it does seem endless at times, but we do preservere and get through it; or rather most of us do! One thing we forget and that is to ask for help in such times – that would make it more bearable!
Nothing is permanent, how very true! While I was reading your post I remembered the story I read long ago, where everyone is assuming the other is leading a better life, but if you see they all are just vying to be in others place without really knowing the whole truth.
Cheers to that Neha; its our perception and the habit of looking at others life to put ourselves down – that is what holds us all back from enjoying ours! So happy to read your thoughts on my post 🙂
I so agree with this post! My mantra during challenging times is “Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay then it’s not the end.” And I have seen that everything eventually turns out well in the end and such challenging phases do pass away from our lives!!
Yes if its not well then its not the end!! Very proetic and very true too!! I too have seen the wisdom in these words actually and now calm myself down in times of every crisis; sometimes I begin to question my calm as being detached! That makes me feel a little scared to realise that maybe I have become uncaring!! Wonder if that is true- food for thought for another post I guess!
I agree with your views here, Shalini. Troubles test us – our patience, willingness to face, learn and overcome, our strength. I tell myself every now and then that every thing is all right, that some time in the future I will look back with pride that I faced and got past the days that weren’t so nice to me. It’s this hope that this too shall pass keeps us moving forward, right? It is okay, we are strong enough to face the unfairness this life presents us with. 🙂
I am not able to tweet this, Shalini. The sharing links are not working on this page, don’t know why.
Must have been a momentary glitch for I can see your twitter share now Vini!! Thanks so much
No, that I did manually. Opened my twitter account and posted from there since the link on the blog was not working, Shalini.
Oops – ok will check it out Vini; thanks for the concern!! 🙂
No problem, dear. Just wanted to let you know, that’s all. ❤️
Yay Vini!! So glad to find another kindered spirit who feels the same way; I too tell myself that sometime in near future these 2-3 days of worry will seem a thing of the past. This time a week from now – things will look much different. Ever since I adopted that line of reasoning, things have become a bit easy to bear! Sometimes I fear I have become too detached with this mode of thinking; but I think I need it to stay strong! Quite a dilemma at times to be strong. But yes all things pass – the good and the bad- all of it comes and goes!! What stays is us and we need to learn to cope with it all as best as we can 🙂
So true, Nothing is permanent, time moves and so are we supposed to move ahead. Laughter, cries, tears or happiness they all are part of our life and we have to make with them in all situations. One does question that why me, why life was hard to me, but did we ever questioned when it was nice and happy for us. so if this has passed, that too shall pass. we need to be grateful and practice gratitude in all times. Great post
Keep blogging