The beauty of giving it your all

I’ve always hated the phrase “life isn’t fair”

I feel like it’s never said kindly, you know? It’s always said by someone in a curt tone, and it’s always said to wrap up a conversation. You’ll be venting or expressing frustration, and someone will hit you with “life isn’t fair” and it feels like a trump card and an end to the conversation that you weren’t finished having.

But sadly, the curt voices who throw that phrase around are correct. Life is, in fact, not fair.

So many shitty and unfair things happen in life, and it fills you with a sense of hopeless longing and sometimes rancid anger. But lately, I’ve found something to enjoy in the unfairness of situations.

It’s that while life may be chaotic, and unpredictable, and sometimes brutally unfair - we can always be responsible for our actions. Our choices. What we do. What we’ve done. What we’ve tried to do.

And this is what makes things feel so unfair.

It feels unfair when you get passed over for a promotion that you worked so hard for. It feels unfair when your rent goes up 20% unexpectedly after you’ve been a great tenant. It feels unfair when you get cheated on while you’ve been a loyal partner for years.

But there’s something so beautiful in knowing that even in an unfair situation - you’re not at fault.

Now, this isn’t a victim mindset! This isn’t the mindset of, “oh, this horrible thing happened to me, and I didn’t do anything to deserve it!”

Instead, it’s the mindset of, “this horrible thing happened, but I did everything I could to make it right, and I left no stone unturned. It still happened, and it’s devastating. But I gave it my all and I did my best”

There’s a difference between sadness and regret, and I think sadness hits you in the gut - but regret can cripple you for years.

The most unfair situations are the ones that are the most devastatingly tragic because you did your best. If you get passed over for a promotion but you phoned it in for the last 6 months, it’s not that brutal. But when you’ve been staying late in the office every day for 6 months and then you get passed over for a job…Jesus Christ, does it feel unfair.

But if you phoned it in…you feel regret.

And if you gave it your all…you feel sadness, maybe rage, but also a sense of peace. You couldn’t have done anything better than what you did. You know in your bones that you did the best you could have done.

When you give things your all, and they don’t work out - you might cry yourself to sleep, but you’ll sleep through the night peacefully. Do you get what I mean?

Over the years I’ve spoken to so many of my girl friends and guy friends about romance. And I find it really interesting that my male friends are the ones who have this concept of “the one that got away” while my girl friends don’t.

(When I asked Bridget the other day which of her exes she would pick to end up with she paused and finally said “Could I kill myself instead? Honestly none of them”)

The notion of “the one that got away” usually comes from a sense of regret. And while a lot of my girl friends have gone through bitter, horrible breakups - there’s one notion that’s usually the same for all of them and that’s that they gave it their all (for months) before the breakup.

They analyzed the relationship from every angle. They tried to be sweet for a week, they tried to be sexy for another, they tried to be distant for a third week, and on the fourth week they did a combo attack of solo therapy, tons of journaling, and maybe they even threw some crystals into the mix too. They posted their funniest content online hoping their partner would see it, and they researched Attachment Theory and Love Languages to try and figure out what was going on. They sought advice from their friends, they read their partners horoscope, and they gave it their all.

Were they sad after the breakup? Yes.

Did they come to me months later and say that they screwed up and if only they had done xyz, things would be different? It hasn’t happened once yet.

Because they gave it their all.

It’s a beautiful thing. Heart breakingly beautiful, but I still think it’s beautiful.

We’re really only responsible for one thing in life and that’s our own choices.

Horrible things will happen to us, and they will make us sad. They will make us upset. They will make us angry.

But will they fill us with regret?

Not if we gave it our all. It’s the life hack out of regret.

Now, sadly, it won’t protect you from sadness haha…I think the life hack out of sadness is gratitude…but that’s a blog post for another day.

But there is a beauty in giving it your all, and I welcome you to join me in always trying to give things your all! When unfair things happen to us (they will…sadly it’s a fact of life) we can be sad together. But we can also walk around with a sense of peace in us because we know, inherently, that there’s a beauty in giving it your all.

Until the next one,
S