An Open Letter To Anyone Who Tries Their Best Every Day

This pandemic period is a hard season for everyone. It brought a lot of change to people and how we live our lives. For me, I used to know what I always wanted in life, but in the past months I felt like I was losing myself and my purpose became more and more blurred every day. I don’t know what path I want to go on. As the days go by, I just want to disappear and search for the safest sanctuary for humans to hide. The social pressure is so high and the quarter life crisis feeling has hit me like a truck. My mental health is on the line, and here I am, writing this as a reminder for myself and anybody out there who needs to read this:

You have done as much as you can. 

I’ll write that again: You have done as much as you can.

Your car window may not be clear, but the sun still shines every day to guide you home.

It may be hard, but look at you, surviving till now, making it to the end of the year and ready to celebrate the challenges in the next year. 

I learned that it is okay not to understand your current situation as long as you keep going. Because the truth is, no one does. Everyone is on their own journey to figure out how their life should be, and the important part of one journey is not about the vehicle you ride in, but the gasoline that keeps you going. The scariest part of it is how you can forget to refill your gasoline and force your vehicle to keep moving. In the end, the vehicle can stop anywhere you would not expect it to, and you will be there alone, stuck on the unknown route.

Therefore, we need to diligently watch our fuel over time. It is time to stop a while, or it is time to finally drive fast again?

When it is the time to stop, I learned it is important to take some quality time off for myself. In a world where everything is spinning faster than before, there is always a time when we feel too tired to keep up with everything that’s happening. We are so caught up in our routines every day that we don’t feel as happy as we used to. We feel empty inside. Our gasoline slowly runs out and we need to stop at the nearest gas station to fill it again. 

It is important to realize that our body and mind need more of a quality break time than the quantity of the break time we give to ourselves. It is where we can really put ourselves into every second in life. Do what we love. Explore things we always wanted to. Take a rest after a hard week. Search for a mindful activity to recharge ourselves better.

Then when you feel it is time to drive fast again, do it with your heart and focus on your goal. Knowing the purpose of every little thing we do is actually training us to have a persevering heart.

The journey will also be more exciting if we bring our friends and our loved ones on it. We are flawed creatures who need each other to fill up the imperfections we have in ourselves. When we are surrounded by positive people, there is an indescribable feeling to do better and work harder for them —knowing that we are loved and we are not alone plays a big part for our mental health and becomes the gasoline we need in life.

Lastly, let’s spend our gasoline well on something we won’t regret and people we’ll always cherish. Choose what and who you would spend your energy on. Because like the popular quote says, “You can’t please everyone,” so make sure everything you do is at least pleasing to yourself.