There is nothing worse than not feeling happy and not knowing why the fuck that is.

It’s a struggle when you feel like jumping off a ledge some days, and yet, everyone consistently mentions “how lucky” you are to have the life that you do.

It sucks when you don’t feel the way other people do about your own life.

You feel as though maybe you’re fucking crazy or that you’ve totally missed the point to being alive, so you seek out the answers in external things, like books, and “experts”, and “holistic retreats”, and “yoga”, and a “puff puff” here and a “puff puff” there, until you finally come full circle to realize that there is actually nothing wrong with the way you feel about your life. You’re just feeling low right now and that’s ofuckingkay.

I used to comb the aisles of books stores looking for answers to difficult questions about things. I once bought a book called, “Twenty Something, Twenty Everything”, hoping that I’d find the reason for why I was feeling so much shit, all the time: love, then hate, then confusion, then knowing I want to be a writer, then not knowing if I want to be a writer, then knowing that I want to get married, then not knowing if I want to get married, then taking that job, quitting that job, hating that person, then loving them….

Two things I’ve learned about life in general so far:  First, nobody has ever written a book that contains any reasonable answers to any of those things I mentioned above. So stop trying to find them in stuff like this. Those things can only provide insight, not the truth.

At the end of the day, you will always experience life in your own way; best you can do is try and commiserate with other people in a similar situation and be honest about what’s on your mind. But beware of telling the wrong people too much – predators come in all shapes and sizes, so I advise modesty when it comes to opening up your heart to just anyone with a trusting smile. Nowhere did I learn that the most than in my late 20s.

Secondly, I have learned that emotions are probably the thing holding you back from wherever it is you feel you want to be doing with your life, at any given moment. Having emotions doesn’t equal being “emotional”, which, for the record, is not something that’s exclusive to women. Men are emotional too. The macho ones? Emotional cripples. And the ones who are acting like they don’t care all the time? Those ones have more emotional scars than celebrity children.

I feel as though I’m getting off track here. I only wanted to relay a message that the days when you feeling like you’re really going to lose your shit or give up or tell your boss to fuck off or trash talk yourself into a depression or slouch on the sofa all day or sabotage the very best things in your life.. on those days, especially on those days, I hope you can try and remember:

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

I wish I wrote that, but that is “The Guest House” by Rumi, not me. My friend Jessica read it to me today over sushi and miso soup, and I realized that I hadn’t really ever paid attention to that poem before. And yet, those are words that say it all – we are not our emotions; they are simply guests that come and go. Treat them with dignity by acknowledging their arrival… and then kick them the fuck out.

I hope this post is something you needed today, that maybe it was even the sign that you were looking or something. It hit me pretty good when I had it read to me, and I liked it.

Thought you might, too.

-sandy.

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