It's all temporary

We forget that everything is temporary. We hear this over and over again- that everything comes to an end, that the sadness will fade and the highs and lows will plateau yet again. But for some reason, it’s hard to remember this fact that’s so obviously true.

As humans, we have piles of evidence for this truth and yet every time we experience a period of anxiety and depression, we assume it will last forever as though this purely logical truth vanishes from our thoughts. During these periods of overthinking and lows, we drown ourselves in these worries in a way not even looking for a solution, a way out, an end.

We become comfortable with this feeling of not being ok, of being constantly anxious, of just not having a good day.

When in the present you feel like nothing is going your way, somehow your brain decides to paint over the past in black ink, tarnishing your memory in such a way that the world just seemed to always have been against you.

The times you spent laughing with friends, running tasting pure euphoria, or celebrating life all seem to go straight to the back of your mind and so, as to keep up with the theme, your mind instead begins to laser in on all the memories that fit your current mood- the fights you had with your friends, the days you felt tirelessly lonely, the days you lost hope that it’ll all be ok.

Your brain wants to keep a sense of harmony in a sense and when it’s a positive, happy harmony we love it but when it becomes negative or pessimistic we begin to trick ourselves into thinking that this is the way it has always been and the way it will always be.

I’ve tried so many times to tell myself – after realizing that every problem is temporary – that the next time I feel down, I’ll remind myself that it’s all temporary and that eventually everything will be ok.

Unfortunately, this hasn’t seemed to work.

At first, I blamed my memory assuming that it simply refused to remember this vital, helpful truth. Second, I assumed that my brain just became attached to feeling the low, the sadness, the loss of hope, allowing the selective permeation of matching, negative memories. But what I’ve recently theorized is something completely different. It has nothing to do with the strength of my synapses establishing memories inside my brain.

It has to do with the word “ok”.

TV shows, books, advertisements, you name it ALWAYS and consistently associate being ok with being fantastic, worriless, problem-free, fully capable, and at the highest peak. Irritatingly so, this definition of ok has thus transferred into the minds of most millennials including ( yay ) my own.

But there is one phrase Americans use that counters this and is something I somehow grew inspiration from: When someone asks someone else if they want food and the person doesn’t want the food many times they’ll respond “I’m ok”. This “ok” doesn’t mean fantastic, worriless, problem-free, fully capable, or anywhere near the highest peak.

This ok very subtly establishes a sense of confidence in the person’s current state.

Albeit this confidence is associated with awareness of how full someone is but if we can learn to apply the usage of this word to questions like “are YOU ok”, I think we can grow and learn a lot. Rather than allowing yourself, when you hit a period of sadness or depression, to look at the world in a lost, cynical lens, to try to analyze the reasons for this mood, to assume that this period will last forever, to predict how this will affect your future, tell yourself that no matter what you’re feeling it is OK. You are ok.

If you are alive, you are ok.

One of the greatest gifts meditation ( shout-out to the Calm app ) has provided me with is the power of acceptance. This is not just situational acceptance, acknowledging that you can’t change other people so accept it. This acceptance allows you to love yourself, care for yourself, and remain confident in yourself at all times. This very application removes this idea that you always have to be in a good mood, that things have to be going in the right direction, that you have to be making good progress to feel good about yourself.

This very application allows you to say I’m ok even when your brain may be spiraling, even when you’re not in the best mood.

From this starting point you can then use the past as very clear evidence that these times that seem incessant will always end at some point. By attaching ourselves to the peaks of our lives constantly aiming for the highs we narrow the amount of time we can spend truly happy in our lives to the times when things are going well.

As we all know, things do not always go well.

If we, alternatively, learn to accept, maybe not necessarily love, wherever we are be it the baseline, below sea level, the peak of the Himalayas, we can gain a sense of self-built constancy and resilience.

Life won’t seem so scary anymore because we know, in our core, that somehow things will change over time and in the interim, it is all ok.