There are times what it feels so dark in your soul that you aren’t sure if you’re going to make it.
There are times when you feel so broken — so torn in pieces — that you aren’t sure if you can ever be the same again.
You’ve been there before.
A place so sad and incomparable lonely that it feels for a moment as if the world itself has fallen down upon itself.
And you aren’t sure how to make it better. You aren’t sure how to heal — how to make the pain go away.
The truth about pain and problems is that we all face hard times. Despite the best of decisions and good intentions, things blow up — things that aren’t your fault.
Problems happen that you didn’t cause.
Issues arise that you did nothing to cause. Life treats you unfairly when you least deserve it.
And you’re left wondering what to do about it — left wondering if there’s anything possible to fix the moment. Anything to help save the remnants of your soul.
You know in your head that it’s not over, that you’ll live to fight another day, but your heart feels helplessly torn. Hopelessly broken.
You don’t feel like anything you can do will fix things.
You’re going to face a moment like this. You might be having one of those moments right now.
Everywhere you look around you is darkness. No light. No music. Just a tunnel of fear and failure. And you’re asking yourself what you can do.
Don’t give up the fight. Don’t let the darkness cripple you. Don’t give in. Don’t stop believing in yourself.
It’s okay to bend — but don’t break.
It’s okay to cry out but don’t give in.
The darkness will pass. The morning will dawn. The sun will soon shine.
The warmth if its light will soon touch your soul.
And you’ll feel alive again.
This moment will just be a distant memory thread.
A memory that’s made you tougher. More resilient. Indefatigably unconquerable.
But if you give up when things look bad — if you give in and stop believing — you’ll feel no comfort when the sun finally shines.
Only the searing reminder of your weakness. The burning rays of failure.
You’ll wish you had chosen “you” over everything else.
You’ll wish you hadn’t stopped. But then it will be too late to believe in you.
The time to believe is when it’s darkest. The time to keep going is when you feel like stopping. The time to move up is when you feel most down.
Life doesn’t owe you anything besides the memory of tomorrow. The memory of a beckoning dawn. The promise of the golden rays of morning.
It will get better. A new day will begin soon.
May it bring you the empowering warmth to continue what you have not forgotten to keep doing in the midst of your darkness.
Fight on.
About the author
Dan Waldschmidt doesn’t just talk about leveling up. He’s obsessed with it. He's set records as an ultra-runner and been the personal strategist for the leading business leaders of our time. He wrote a book, called EDGY Conversations that accidentally became a worldwide bestseller and continues to share his insights from the stage as a keynote speaker and on the blogs and podcasts you will find here. Most days, you'll find Dan heads-down, working on breakthrough strategies for his clients at EDGY Inc, a highly-focused, invite-only, business strategy execution company based out of Silicon Valley.
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Dan Waldschmidt
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