Take a Pause
How do you get by? How do you deal with the pain of struggling for something you can’t achieve? The disappointment after doing your best yet things don’t work out the way you want them to? The regrets in your what if’s? How do you deal with everything? Because If you ask me, my answer is taking a pause.
When I’m struggling, like in the middle of something that I want but can’t accomplish, and I feel like it drowns me, I let myself take a pause to cry and feel frustrated, because why not? We are humans, and having emotions is part of it. Eventually it will go away, but feeling it makes me feel vulnerable and eligible for help. Maybe if I can’t change the situation I’m in, I can assert it in a different way, perhaps with the help of different perspectives and hands of different arms which all belong to different people like my family or friends. Pausing makes us see that there are things you must face alone, but there are also things which you need to face with the help of others, and that’s okay. Again, you’re only human, and asking help from others doesn’t make you any lesser than that.
There are also instances where I know I did my best. I poured it all in, but then I still failed, and that made failure very painful. When you know you gave it all but still wasn’t enough. Still ended up with nothing. And so I pause and appreciate. Pausing gives me the opportunity to think all about those times that I won, not in a competition but in blessings. When we don’t get what we think we deserve, we tend to think that it’s unfair, but it’s not. We are so blessed in many ways, and because we are in a situation where we feel we’re not, we forget to think about all those goodness we experienced from the Lord. As for me, those times when I passed a test I didn’t study for, the chance to go to school, the complete simple family I have, the dogs I took care of, surviving a severe dengue, the chance to appreciate the sky’s beauty. Everything. Every single thing, big or small. These are all proof of you winning in life, but remember winning means failing at times, but that doesn’t mean you’re not blessed.
According to Merriam Webster, regret is an expression of sorrow or disappointment, and I can say that we all agree to that, because feeling regretful means failing too right? Failing to do the what if’s. So when I feel this regret, I pause and accept. Accept that I can no longer change what happened, but I can do something in the future to not end up with the same regret I’m feeling at the moment. Besides, regrets should result in learning and growing. Applying the same ingredients for cheesecakes won’t result in chocolate cake. In addition to that, regretting over the same thing is much more painful to experience, so learning and growing needs to happen. That’s why there’s a need to pause that leads to acceptance, learning, and growth.
We humans have our own lives and our own share of experiences, but having different destinations doesn’t mean we can’t use the same roads. I’m sharing this idea and learnings of mine to help others who are going through the same thing I experienced. Pausing helps me since it can be a form of rest, a timeout, a day off, a break. It is different from stopping. When you pause, you can resume anytime, you can continue when you’re already prepared to fight again and go on with the story.