Every single story of someone’s life is made up of chapters that you know nothing about.
Truth.
We are all so quick to judge. Myself included. We see someone, hear their story and judge them on the chapter we are walking into …not really thinking of all of the chapters that came before that one to make that person who they are today.
Think about it. Our judgement usually comes from what we know now, not all of the highs and lows that brought them there. As humans we like to brag, post the good times, share the glories, but when we fall.. or fail… we keep it quiet; afraid to share on the pages of our brag books that life is not all sunshine and roses.
Why? Why is it that we feel we need to only post positives and push for perfection? Well, it’s because we are all afraid of being ‘less than’ which sadly is driving our own happiness away. On this quest for perfection, we are missing the whole point… that life is a rollercoaster ride with ups and downs and we can’t fully appreciate the ups, if the downs aren’t there too.
It’s the dips on rollercoaster rides that make us lose our breath and scream in excitement. If the whole ride had no ups and downs it would be pretty darn boring… same with life.
I won’t speak for anyone else… but in my younger years I grew up thinking that people didn’t want to hear your struggles.
We all have that friend that when we ask them how they are doing they break off into a 15-minute rant about how shitty their job is, how tired they are, how their kids are wearing them down… and blah, blah, blah…
We walk away feeling drained of energy and sucked dry and remind ourselves that when people ask us how we are doing to simply reply “good” to avoid that scrutiny.
But I’ve stopped saying ‘good’ cause it’s not always the truth. Sure, I don’t need to spill my troubles to anyone willing to listen, but sometimes when asked how I am I make a conscious effort to say, “Okay”, “better today than yesterday” or “meh I’m hanging in there.”
Not everyone has to hear our struggles and hardships and we don’t have to be Debbie Downer all the time, but I truly feel that the key to happiness is accepting what is and not trying to paint a picture of perfection that is all smoke and mirrors.
Honesty brings happiness. In accepting life as it unfolds; the good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly, we can walk through those chapters of our own life stories with confidence that every single step and misstep has led us right where we are meant to be.
Recently I sold my downtown condo.
It was a place I purchased with my roommate in our third-year university, with the help of our parents, and we were beyond lucky as rates were low, first-time home buyers had perks and we pledged to work our tails off to afford the mortgage and stay afloat.
We did just that.
After two years my roommate moved back to the West Coast to be with her family and I was left with the place on my own.
Roommates came and went but I stayed constant. Proving to myself over and over again that I could do this. I gave up so much for that place and yet gained so much as well.
Those walls truly shaped me into the person I am today and taught me so many valuable lessons.
I held on to the place for 24 years… living there for a good half of those years and renting it out the rest.
When marriage finally came, I couldn’t let the condo go. I had had my heart broken so badly in the past that I wanted to keep my condo as a place to go should my heart get broken again.
Truth.
I also couldn’t part with all the memories made there yet and close the door on a place that built me. It was part of who I was.
It’s the same reason I couldn’t change my last name. I was who I was because of a lot of struggle and hard work and I wasn’t ready for marriage to take these identities away from me…yet.
But after 11 years of marriage, lots of personal growth, 2 beautiful daughters and a realization that those memories were now the past… I decided it was time to let it go.
When I shared this on my socials so many people offered congratulations and joked how I must now be so rich and could retire… but no one knows my story.
No one knows how for the last two years due to the pandemic, being self-employed and working in the events industry, which was at a standstill, that I didn’t make any income.
No one knows that the last tenants were an absolute nightmare and let the place go so badly that we didn’t recognize it walking in and therefore had to invest a lot of money to make it livable again.
No one knows that we’ve made contributions to loved ones who needed our financial support in times that they were unable to do so because we were in a place that could.
No one knows that the market changed overnight and the condo was listed for 49 days before it sold and we had to drop our price to get some interest in this older building.
No one knows the sleepless nights I laid awake devising a Plan B should it not sell nor the personal torment I was placing on myself for not letting it go years ago.
People see the ‘shine’, ‘the good’, ‘the profit’ and the ‘glory’.
Why? Because they want to.
Life makes us all judge everyone else. Makes us see things the way we want to see them and then makes us feel defeated as we feel we never measure up to what we are seeing on our feeds.
We see the one story posted.
We don’t take time to acknowledge the back story that every main story has.
We see a broken marriage and feel sad for them, when diving into the previous chapters we would actually see one hell of a lot of strength and courage and growth.
We see happy kids who are always smiling and laughing, but if we dug deep into other chapters, we would see a child who was perhaps struggling and a mom was trying her hardest to put smiles on these faces because of a back story happening at home.
Every story has chapters, so let’s not be so quick to judge on the chapter we are walking into of someone’s life.
Life is highs and lows and it is in those valleys where we gain or deepest strengths and broadest lessons.
In this week’s joy journey… I challenge you for one whole week… when someone asks you how you are doing to answer honestly. It doesn’t need to be long winded or deep, just honest. If you are not ‘good’ don’t answer that way. Happiness comes in honesty and when we accept life for what it is and where we stand in it the joy follows.
Every story has a lot of chapters. Be kind. Know that what you see is just one small chapter in someone’s book of life.
Hang tight for the ride, we’ve got this!
@half_full_most_days