A few months ago Alla & I went to dinner with two good friends and we started to fondly tell stories of how we struggled in the past. It wasn’t a huge dramatic re-telling of stories. It was light-hearted recounting of what we’ve experienced and seeing how far we’ve come.
Stories ranged from living in an empty apartment because we can’t afford furniture or eating instant noodles because that’s the only thing we can buy. Then it slowly moved to how we all felt when we could buy simple things. Yes - as simple as a chair or a curtain or a real meal.
It was amazing to hear each other’s stories of struggles and how we overcame those. One of the lines that struck me during that night was the same sentiment we all had -
We’ve experienced some really low points in life and we’ve worked so hard to get out of it and be where we are right now. Experiencing those made us stronger to pursue and do everything we can to craft the life that we want.
Do we want to be back there? Of course not.
But if it happens that we fail or hit a huge setback that brings us back there, we all felt confident knowing that we’ll be fine.
We’ve done it before and we can definitely do that again.
If you’re in a tight spot right now, it might be hard to see what you’re experiencing as a life lesson or a story to tell in the future. It would be hard to see it as something to be grateful for. That’s not what you need to do now anyway. Focus on what you want to happen.
Work on it and never give up.
Reach out.
You’ll make it.
Believe in yourself.
