Everybody's Broken In This Life

I think the difference between amazing people who live quietly inspiring lives, and everybody else is not that they live in absence of pain, but that they have given purpose to their pain.
When we embrace our pain, as still being part of us, we can use it to make a difference. Maybe we can mentor someone facing a similar situation, and help them overcome where we failed. Or maybe we can lead someone down the path to healing who is also dealing with the same crippling circumstances we once faced. The pain doesn't define you, but it does deepen you. It makes you compassionate in a way that you could not be if you had not lived through that hurt. The pain is an opportunity to use your experience to impact the world in a way that only you can, or at least in a way that only people who have walked in your shoes can. It is often said, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger", but we all know that's wishful thinking. Sometimes what doesn't kill you may as well have. Sometimes what doesn't kill you just kills your spirit. It kills your will, and your passion, and your hope for tomorrow, and I think that is probably worse.

I'm not a psychologist, and I don't know the secret to giving purpose to your pain, but in my limited experience I think it has to do with focus and faith. Faith that everything happens for a reason, and that even when we don't understand it, or see it, that there still is one. Faith that we do not know everything, and that while we would not wish this path for ourselves, that good can come of it. And focus, not on ourselves, but on others. If we think of pouring our experience into a greater understanding of others, and maybe even reaching out to pull someone up from the pit they feel trapped in, then we can see beyond our despair. It doesn't mean the hurt stops. It doesn't mean that it sucks any less. Some things absolutely suck, and if you ask me in 50 years I will still tell you that they suck. As I see it, we can stay there, "stuck in the suck", or we can say, "This is the worst thing ever, and it's not fair, and I hate it, but I refuse to hate the rest of my life because of it."

There are hurts I haven't faced, and when I meet people or hear about people who are facing them, I feel like I would crumble under the weight of the pain. I know that the process of giving purpose to the pain might take years, or even decades. Some hurts are so deep that to even think about sharing them knocks the breath out of a person. I don't know how to get there, or who to turn to, but I know that people who are transparent about their pain, who determine to find a way to bring good out of bad, that those are the people who go on to inspire me, and the world along with me. If you are going through something painful. I am deeply, legitimately sorry. I hope it doesn't kill you, and I hope that little by little, it makes you stronger. Maybe right now burying it is the only way that you can get out of bed, but I hope that someday you can share it. Give it purpose, and use it to bring hope to our little painful planet.

"It's okay to be a little broken, everybody's broken in this life. It's okay, to feel a little broken, everybody's broken. You're alright. It's just life."
-Bon Jovi