A Beautiful Mess

Several months ago I started this experiment where every day before I went to bed I would summarize my day with one word that described how I felt and wrote it down on my whiteboard. I did this to help myself better understand why I always felt the way I did. I wondered that maybe the mundane, and horrible things that happen to me and so many other people are actually minuscule in the grand scheme of things. My hope was that once all my feelings were laid out before me then maybe I would be able to fix them.

What I found was something different. I was surprised at how complex and inconsistent my life really is. If you take a look at this board you can see so many words. So many bad, and so many good words all spread across the whiteboard of my life. Each word is colorful, and each word holds just as much significance as the last. They are all scattered, but they are also all full of life. It actually looks like a mess, but it’s “A Beautiful Mess.” and I think that is profound.

We as humans are indeed a beautiful mess, and if we focus too much on the bad, like the words depressed, sad, and overwhelmed, then we tend to miss the words like happy, blessed, and smitten. If we lose perspective. If we let some words overshadow the others then we miss out on the best life has to offer. Because once you have your emotions laid out in front of you as I do now you begin to realize that those negative words aren’t so big after all.

I just want this to be a message to all those out there that might be struggling or focusing on the bad and tell them that it’s okay and it won’t last forever. Every day is a new day, a new color, a new opportunity for something better. You are a beautiful mess, but we all are, and that’s what it means to be human.