Suspend Your Disbelief

Everyone has moments that make us wish Life had a pause button to freeze time so that certain things would stay perfect forever. That moment where the world is ours for the taking and nothing can stop us. We wish to stop time for so that we can appreciate these moments.

Eventually these moments are what become our most cherished memories, a standard of sorts, which we set for our lives because we catalogue them as the best moments in our life. We strive to reach a stage in life where we can achieve that similar sort of happiness again. Happiness so pure and magical that everything is just spectacular.

And then that moment fades away. Life goes back to normal and we’re left with a great energy because we’ve seen what life has in store for us (or so we thought). But Life is funny that way. Just when we seem to have it all sorted out Life decides Hey! Wait a second; just kidding, it’s not that easy. And BAMM!! We get knocked down. Suddenly we don’t know how but we’re on the ground and struggling to get up. We go like “hang on Life, I thought I knew what was happening, I have a plan, I had it sorted right? Well Jokes on us because life has a sick sense of humour.

We’re confused and lost wandering aimlessly wondering what the hell we did wrong. We are enveloped in darkness and can’t see where we’re going or where we’re meant to be when what seemed like moments ago we had planned it all. The path that was all light up moments ago, is now pitch black and we ‘re lost. We don’t know how we ended up there. What road led us down this path? Everywhere we turn there’s an obstacle, everyone we look to either doesn’t get it or doesn’t care or just doesn’t understand. We scream out but no one can hear us, and loneliness is our closest friend.

And that is when we break down. Why were we going through the motions in the first place? Why did we choose that path and where is everyone else? We started out together with everyone else and now somehow suddenly its just you all by yourself.

It’s a sad stage in life, a stage where the thing that hurts us most is from inside us and we are powerless to stop it. Its something we have no control over or so we think. We look at the worst in every situation and forget about the silver lining. We lose faith and hope and everything else that matters.

Those cherished moments from before, well, they seem like a mockery of what we don’t have anymore and it knocks you down when to even think of them. They are just something that life uses to tease us. We still appreciate them, but when we are going thought the darkest days of our lives, we see them as simpler times of a person not hardened by the harsh realities of life. We think yeah ok those times were great but fat chance of that happening again because we have now learned that life isn’t easy.

It is here at this point that we begin to lose all hope. We lose hope in the good things that we’re offered because of all the bad that surrounds us. We lose hope of ever finding happiness like we had before. We think that this is it, and unfortunately we give in to the darkness that surrounds us like a thunderous cloud.

The saddest thing about going through a dark stage in life is when we give up hope of finding the light. We don’t even want to try anymore. We are now hardened, pessimistic and cynical souls; we just don’t care anymore. Though the sad thing is if we don’t look for hope, if we don’t grasp the light within; when darkness is all around us, what chances are there, of ever finding it? We can’t always wait for the light to be magically turned on. That’s what we think hope is; just wishful thinking; because now we know better that we have been burned. But that’s where we go wrong.

Hoping for something and it not happening is one thing but losing hope altogether is worse because if there ever was a chance of something better, we tend to let it go because of our hopelessness and unbelief. To hope, to have faith, to believe even though everything around us says differently requires strength. Some people see hope as a figment of imagination, calling it delusional and weak. However it takes a truly strong person to endure harsh realities with nothing more than hope guiding them.

Hope can light up even in the darkest of storms. Sometimes having hope is the only thing a person can have and that’s enough to get them through even the worst of situations. Having hope no matter how little gives you something to hold on to, something that can draw out the good even in the bad.

Hope for a better tomorrow, for a stronger hold on life, hope to be the person you are meant to be, there is no limit to having hope in one’s life. Having hope is the first step we need to take to become who we’re supposed to be.

We need to suspend hopelessness, this sense of disbelief of good ever happening to us. Life is what we make of it, when we believe; we make it happen even if it wasn’t in the original script. Perhaps the earlier version wasn’t what we deserved because we were destined for so much more than what we thought we were.

Just as gold is tested by fire, we are tested by life to make us the best version of who we are supposed to be. Every minute we are alive is a chance for us to do something with our lives. People die every minute of every day yet WE are still here! That itself is something to be glad about.

When we’re at our lowest, when we’ve lost all hope; instead of hiding away from the pain and hurt and pushing away good memories gone by, we need to look back at the things that mattered to us the most. We fear that it would hurt to re-live a time when we were happy just because our current situation is in shambles.

But I disagree, if anything, we should feel grateful that we have such beautiful memories of days gone by. The happy memories; no matter how silly or inconsequent they may seem, are what we need to drive us forward. We should not let the harsh realities of life corrupt the purity of those happy moments before. Or let the hopelessness of the past taint the beautiful moments in the present and the future. Ultimately, it is our choice what we do; we can wield the good to outweigh the bad and move forward or we can decide to give in to the dark and let it draw us back.

In our darkest hour, we have to look back and smile; because of the all the good we experienced rather than whine and sulk, just because life didn’t work out as planned. Life will surely knock us down again and it may be bleak and dreary sometimes but we should choose to believe and be strong, because when we believe it we will make it happen.

We have to make a choice to be happy and hopeful because it is our life and nothing else can determine how we live it but us.