Try

Listen, I know it ain’t easy.

I know the tears come more often than we’d like them to. And I won’t lie to you: it won’t get any easier. It never will. But it’s alright. The heartbreaks, the pain, the anxiety, the struggles… it’s all alright. Wipe those tears from your beautiful face and look at me. We’re stronger than all that shit, you hear me? I swear to God; we are. We can handle suffering. I mean, it’s our job, you know? We gotta take it all in and find some crazy way to turn it into something meaningful. We gotta show life we’re able to fight back; to rebel against our seemingly uncontrollable fate. Because that’s all we can do, really. Refuse to stay silent while we take the beatings; refuse to stay on the ground where we’re sent too often. We gotta stand up. We gotta keep growing and push ourselves against our tomorrows, armed to the teeth with hope and heart. And that’s all we really need: some heart, and a little hope. Sure, it feels like nothing makes sense sometimes. But when it does, it’s our job to step up and create our own sense, our own meaning. We can still choose to love, to create something, to help someone and to smile. We have to. This is the one secret weapon we humans have: choice. And today I’m asking you to choose to try. I don’t want you to win, because in the end, none of us can. But we can all try. Try to be better. Try to love with all of our broken hearts. Try to smile despite our teary eyes. Try to create and give even though we lose so much. Because when it’s all said and done, when our pains and our loves start to fade away, at least we’ll know we tried.

And when death arrives and smiles at us, we can smile back without hesitation, knowing at least we tried.