It’s Okay If You Feel Hopeless Today

It’s okay if you feel hopeless today.

I know that your heart hurts, and I know that your head hurts. There’s a tightness in your chest and a knot in your stomach. You feel like you could cry at any moment, too.

I know that when you look outside, all you see is that one cloud off in the distance, even though the rest of the sky is clear and blue. And I know that cloud makes you want to crawl back into bed. It makes you want to cry, too.

I know that you don’t feel as if you have the energy to get out of bed. I know it feels like the better choice, the easier option, and the path to peace would be to stay in your bed and curl up under the covers. Under the covers, you’d be safe — nothing could go wrong, and you wouldn’t worry about making a mistake.

In these moments, you feel hopeless.

And it’s okay if you feel hopeless today.

To feel hopeless means that you’re feeling despair, that you see no way of redemption or improvement or success. And while these feelings are often overwhelming and disheartening, they’re a beautiful reminder of the fact that you’re feeling something.

And to be able to feel is a glorious thing. Our feelings, both simple and complex, are what make us human.

When you feel hopeless, you’re not burying your worry. You’re not covering up your despair. You’re not hiding your stress or plastering on a smile and pretending that everything is fine when you don’t feel fine.

You’re embracing your discomfort. You’re standing in your vulnerability and letting yourself feel the hopelessness. And standing in that is a mark of strength. Standing in that is how you reignite the tiny flicker of hope that is still within you.

You feel hopeless today, and that’s okay.

It’s okay because it means you’re feeling. It’s okay because, even though you feel hopeless, it doesn’t mean that you are hopeless.

You are not.

You are having a bad day, a bad week. Maybe it’s a bad month or even a bad year. You are in the thicket of hopelessness, but you are not a hopeless human.

But there is still hope within you.

There is still life within you, too.

You are a brilliant and beautiful human being who feels emotions, and emotions aren’t a prison sentence. They change — like the direction of the wind, the rising of the tide, and the phases of the moon.

It’s okay if you feel hopeless today — tomorrow you get to start anew.