Sometimes Life Just Sucks

No one's life is perfect, and no one ever said life was fair. This is not going to be a poor, pitiful, me post. It's not going to be about how bad my life has been or is, quite the opposite, actually. I was talking to someone recently who's had a tough road lately, and they said something that really made me think. They were talking about how they were trying to "keep it all together" and how they were "trying to act like everything was okay" but they didn't know how much longer they could go on like that. It made me wonder: When did we all get the idea that if things are going wrong, we have to pretend that everything's fine? Why are we so afraid to be honest with each other, with ourselves? Why does everything always have to be perfect, and why do we consider ourselves failures if things aren't going so well? Sometimes life just sucks, and if life is kicking you in the ass, you're not obligated to turn around, smile and say, "Thank you." I'm not saying to wallow or bog yourself down in self pity, but be honest with yourself and admit that life, at this particular moment, is dealing you a bad hand, and it's not okay, and it's not fine, but you will get through it. If you pretend like everything is fine when it's not, you'll cause a whole new set of problems. We do such a disservice to ourselves and especially to our children when we set unrealistic expectations of what life should be. NEWSFLASH: Everything is not always fair. Sometimes you actually lose. There will be times in your life that make you sad, and there will be people in your life who will hurt you. I paint a pretty dismal picture, don't I? WRONG! I paint a realistic one. If we spent more of our down times focusing on how to get through rather than waste all of our energy trying to make everyone believe that we're just fine. If there were never bad times, how could we ever appreciate the good? When you're treated unfairly, be that much more determined to treat others fairly. When you lose, take the opportunity to work on the areas where you may have fallen short. When someone hurts you, it may seem like the end of the world, but dwelling on it only hurts you. It doesn't affect them at all. A world where nothing ever goes wrong and everything is fine doesn't exist. There is no Utopia. I'm fine living in the real world with its good and bad. I have a great life. It's just not perfect, and I'm okay with that.