Five: It Always Rains Hardest on People That Deserve the Sun

Life is always really difficult to navigate through. There are always challenges and hurdles thrown at you to see how much you are able to withstand as a person. I have always believed that everything happens for a reason. That reason may not come to light right away, but the reason will come to light eventually. Bu then there are some days where you think that life is just purely unfair. Things happen to the people that deserve it the least and it doesn’t make sense, like the world really messed up and got it all wrong.

It always rains hardest on people that deserve the sun.

This quote resonates with me. Looking back, there have been countless times where horrible tragedies have happened to wonderful people and it just made no sense. Shouldn’t the world be punishing people that deserve to be punished, not the people who deserve the punishment the least? Life sometimes doesn’t make sense. It’s so hard to not be angry at the world for putting such adversities on people that have done nothing wrong to deserve it.

This post isn’t meant to be a post filled with hate – I don’t think that would be very beneficial to anyone. I think it is important to analyze your life and figure out what is worth stressing over, and what is something that could probably considered insignificant in the grand scheme of things and that shouldn’t be overlooked or stressed about too much. I think in today’s society it is easy to get caught up in what your ideal life should look like. So many people portray their life on social media to be perfect in the sense that they are only posting the good photos of their life. In reality, people that post photos and do it for the “likes” are usually the people with the most insecurities and are generally the ones that are the most unhappy and sometimes the most depressed. They need the recognition that “likes” provide on Facebook and Instagram – it gives them acknowledgement that they may not be getting from their family or friends (or lack thereof) to boost their self-esteem.

People today think that little issues are actually big issues, and these little issues are over-dramatized for attention. I think it is important to not get caught up in all of the social media that is so readily available to us. At the end of the day, human connection is the most important. I’m not talking about the connection with humans over social media or over a device. It’s about real, genuine human connection. Having a coffee or dinner with someone without looking at your phone – really conversing with someone without a device interrupting your conversation. Connecting with someone on an intellectual level is so crucial for us to grow as individuals. I think many people now have a hard time socially interacting with one another because whenever things get awkward, we just pick up our phones and scroll through Instagram – it’s sort of our default whenever anything awkward is happening.

Humans are significantly different from other species because we have language. Language, through words, grammar and syntax, allows us to communicate with other humans through infinite combinations to get our message across. Animals, yes, can communicate, but not on the same level as humans can. Knowing this, it’s interesting that humans have this unique ability to communicate through language, but we spend a lot of our time silent and scrolling through social media and not communicating. It’s quite ironic. Without human connection your life would be pretty bleak and sad – so why are we always sidelining human interaction and human connection and replacing it with scrolling through our devices?

I think one important lesson that I have learnt over the past 6+ years is that life is really short. Whenever life throws an obstacle at you, it’s usually to make you stronger, and whenever you feel like something is a huge issue, someone is most likely going through something significantly worse than you are. Open your eyes, reach out to those who may not directly ask for it, be there for your family and friends no matter what. Life is all about rising above adversities and being the best person you can be as an individual. Taking the sourest lemon that life has to offer and turning it into something resembling lemonade. We are all just doing our best to get through this crazy thing called life. Trying to make an impact on the lives of people that we care about the most, because at the end of the day, your life will flash before your eyes – the lives of your loved ones will flash before your eyes. Will you be able to look back and say that you made a difference in someone’s life?

Love the ones that treat you right and forget about the ones that don't. Spend time with the people that want to spend time with you. Forget about the ones that don’t give you the time of day, they’re not worth the stress. Recognize the individual’s in your life that go out of their way to ask you how you are doing or to ask how your day has been, those people are hard to find. Be with the people that allow you to be yourself and provide you with so much joy that you can’t even put it into words. Relationships of any kind take a lot of work. Put the work in if the other person is willing to do the same. No relationship is going to be all rainbows and butterflies, and the moment you figure that out in your life, the moment you will be okay with many of the adversities thrown your way. Relationships are very much like working as a team – you’re not always going to get along, but it is important to acknowledge that you are on the same team and that you have to figure out the hurdles of life together. Find your partners in life, whether those are your best friends, family, significant other… those are the people you want to keep around. Find your tribe and hang onto them because before you know it, life will throw another hurdle at you and you’ll need your tribe to keep you sane.

-lyss

xoxo