Sometimes Life is Hard: These Quotes Will Help YOU Reclaim Your Power

If we are feeling like Life is Hard, it’s because things aren’t working out the way we are wanting them to. Stuff is happening in our environment that is either unacceptable, disappointing, unsatisfactory, objectionable, contrary to our desires, etc…. There are so many reasons we can give for why our life is hard.

When we’re not getting what we want, what we expect, what we think we deserve, and we see others’ lives working out better than ours, sure, why shouldn’t we feel sorry for ourselves, be pissed off with them, or disappointed with our life in general?

I’ve ‘been there and done that,’ and I’m happy to admit that it was many years ago since I last had those kinds of feelings. It all began to change for me when I began to realize that BY ME FEELING NEGATIVE ABOUT ANYTHING, I WAS LEFT POWERLESS and without any remedy to the issues at hand.

In other words, my being negative was a ‘no-win’ scenario for ME! It was my health and well-being that were harmed by my adverse feelings. Once I realized this, I decided to learn about and implement better ways of reacting to situations so I would improve the quality of my life.

I found lots of inspiration in quotes from others who were wiser than me, and I hope that by sharing these words of wisdom you too will be inspired to pick yourself up, shake yourselves off, and see about making a better life for yourselves, just as I have.

Sometimes Life is Hard: These Quotes Will Help YOU Reclaim Your Power

I began to understand that stuff will always happen that we have no control over and some of it makes us feel like life is hard. However, what we do have control over is the way we think about ‘the stuff’ and our reaction to it. Being negative only keeps us trapped with the problem, whereas, if we adopted a positive attitude, we would be empowered to recognize solutions. A positive attitude is therefore the best response as it enables us to rise above issues and solve our problems.

“Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” – Joshua J. Marine

Going back to my personal experiences: years ago, if something happened that I was not happy about, I would have normally wasted energy moping around and complaining about it to anyone who would listen.

Now…. I realize this was not only taking away my power to improve the situation, but also bringing those around me down. Nobody wins when we are focusing on our problems! This is because problems have a different energy to solutions, and we cannot ‘fix’ anything when we remain fixated on how bad or how hard it is.

Solutions or improvements to our problems, issues, disappointments, frustrations, etc. all require that we look beyond the problems so we can become open to resolving them.

I believe the above quote is suggesting we need to embrace what we currently consider to be problems with interest. This change in attitude/energy opens us up to being able to see and implement solutions instead of being stuck down at the level of the problem.

I believe Einstein expressed the same sentiment in a slightly different way when he said:

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

The second part of the quote, “overcoming them (our challenges) is what makes life meaningful” is something I have also learned from experience.

I’m sure that everyone, at some time or another, has felt the rush of energy, pride, and the feeling of accomplishment, which comes from overcoming an obstacle in our lives. Doesn’t it feel great? Wasn’t it so good that it makes you want to feel it again and again?

Personal growth and development and positive change are never accomplished by sitting on the couch watching crap on TV and eating junk food….. To achieve more from life and to learn how to create a better life experience for ourselves, we actually have to experience more of what life has to offer us….. and this includes the hard stuff!

The more hard stuff we face and overcome, the greater our character becomes. Our potential becomes greater, and we become more interesting….. because when we have faced life’s challenges and overcome them, we become powerful, and we become interesting. We become someone that people want to know about because we are leading by example as well as setting an example for others to learn from.

Overcoming difficulties teaches us that life is not out to get us. Instead, we come to deeply understand that life is a school and we are perpetual students. And life is just giving us opportunities (hardship, fear, as well as love, happiness, etc.) so we can grow and improve ourselves, not to break us.

“To succeed, you have to do something and be very bad at it for a while. You have to look bad before you can look really good.” – Barbara DeAngelis

So many times I’ve seen people attempt things once or twice, or maybe a dozen times, and give up believing that it’s too hard, or they can’t do it. And maybe I was guilty of this in the past as well.

However, now I would like to pick them up, shake them, and tell them that if something is important to them that they must never give up….. never stop until they have achieved their goals.

Why???? Because imagine if you stopped trying to walk because you fell over a few times (at 6 months old) when you were just learning….. Imagine if you stopped learning to read because you got a few words wrong and felt silly when you were three years old…… Imagine if you stopped learning to drive your parent’s car the first time you stalled it…..

We won’t achieve anything worthwhile without sucking at it while we are learning! Learning new stuff is an important aspect of life, and it requires that we follow a process…. The process starts with us not being able to do it and hopefully ends with us becoming accomplished at whatever we are learning.

If you ask any professional athlete, an accomplished scholar, or any successful business person, they will all be able to recount countless hours of sweat and pain they have invested into becoming great at what they do.

There is a lesson here for us. And it is that if we want something bad enough, it’s more than likely that we can achieve it, but.…..

WE HAVE TO DO WHAT IT TAKES TO GET WHAT WE WANT…. AND THAT MEANS WE HAVE TO KEEP GOING THROUGH THE INITIAL PAIN OF FAILURE, DISAPPOINTMENT, AND PAIN.

Yes, it can be hard… but so what? If you really want to achieve something, just decide to pursue it and then throw yourself into it with all of your heart and mind energy. And if you approach your learning with the attitude that ‘whatever happens, the good and the bad that come out of this, it is all for my benefit,’ you will continue, and you will succeed.

“The trick is to enjoy life. Don’t wish away your days, waiting for better ones ahead.” – Marjorie Pay Hinckley

I know what it’s like when you’re down in the dumps because it seems like nothing is working out for us. I’ve been there many times in my younger days that at times, I almost believed life wasn’t worth living…. And that sucked!

Even now, not everything works out as I would like it to every time. And why should everything always work out for me?

I’m not the only one on the planet! I’m not the only one with goals, expectations, desires, hopes, and dreams. There are 7 billion other people who have their own stuff going on. When I want my team to win, someone else is supporting the opposition. Should my proposal be selected, or my competitors? After all, they have feelings too, and their hope would be that they succeed.

And then there is nature to contend with. She has her own agenda which doesn’t give any consideration to what I want! If I want a sunny day for my sister’s wedding, all we can do is pick a good month and hope for the best. If we want our crops to thrive in the field next door, we are going to be hoping for sufficient rain….. Who wins when we are disappointed with outcomes….  certainly not us!

The point I wish to get across is: “what is a better day?” Why are we waiting for everything to line up perfectly before we decide to be happy…. And why are we wasting our time suffering when things are not turning out as we hoped?

We could just make the conscious choice to be happy…..

……… and dance in the rain…… after all it’s a fun thing to do…. Much better than moping around being upset about something we can’t control or change, isn’t it???? Life is happening to us here and now. And if we can learn to enjoy what is happening here and now, we will have awesome lives. “The trick is to enjoy life!”

“You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.” – James Allen

James Allen is a wise man. His book, ‘As A Man Thinketh’ has endured for over a century already and has been cited as being very influential in helping many people to achieve their dreams.

He says, if we think life is hard, it will be hard…. not because it is hard, but because our thoughts have created the reality that we are dwelling on.

Think about this: A dozen people can be having the same experience, maybe looking at some election results, for example. Some of them are happy with the outcome, some of them are upset, and others are experiencing varying degrees in between. So if our preferred candidate lost, was it the election itself that causes us to believe that life is hard, not fair, or that it sucks?

No, it’s not. Because for some other people, when they experience the same event, they believe that because their candidate won life is good (at least for this moment!)

It is our thoughts that are determining how we feel!

It is our thoughts that are responsible for the emotions we experience and therefore our state of well-being…. Not the circumstances, events, or other people. And if we can understand this, we can liberate ourselves from being ‘emotionally controlled’ by stuff that is happening in the world around us.

Tomorrow is a new opportunity to begin again. And with the new day, we can decide how we are going to interact with the world around us.

Will we continue to be upset and limited by the stuff that is happening around us that we don’t like or approve of? Or are we willing to accept more responsibility for our state of mind and consciously choose to think a little differently so that we manifest better feelings within ourselves?

“You will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you….” Are you going to let your tomorrow be a repeat of your today and yesterday, OR, is it time for you to accept more responsibility for the way your thoughts are creating the quality of your lives????

It’s your thoughts and your life…. what sort of experience do you want to have? The choice is yours, and I suggest you choose your thoughts wisely 🙂

Shared with love and respect for all souls who choose to play the game of life!

Wishing you a fantastic day,

Andrew