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Life is not tidy. It is not a polished painting with perfect symmetry or a carefully arranged bouquet of only the finest blooms. Life is rough, uneven, beautiful, cruel, and magnificent all at once. It is an agglomeration of opposites: black and white, joy and sorrow, just and unjust, the beautiful and the ugly side by side. To live fully is to live with these contradictions. To deny them is to fight the very fabric of existence. Yet many of us spend precious energy resisting what cannot be changed, worrying about what lies forever outside our control. And in doing so, we drain the very hope we need to keep going.

Worry has two faces. One is practical, the kind that nudges us into action: paying the bill before it is due, fixing the leak before it floods, calling the doctor when something is wrong. This type of worry has purpose; it can be solved. And once action is taken, it usually dissolves. The other kind of worry is irrational. It circles endlessly in our heads, whispering about things that might happen, things we cannot control, or things that belong to someone else’s choices. This worry is a thief. It takes our energy but offers nothing in return. It cannot be solved, because it exists only in the mind. Many people confuse the two. They spend hours, days, even years haunted by worries that are neither their responsibility nor within their power to change. And in that endless fight, their spirit grows tired.

I believe those of us who grew up without the luxury of constant conversation, without being pampered or reassured by people close to us, are forced to learn a different kind of strength. When there is no one to smooth our fears or constantly remind us that everything will be all right, we turn inward. We learn to listen to ourselves, to measure our own fears, and to separate what is real from what is imagined. It does not mean life becomes easier, far from it. But it means we begin to recognize the futility of carrying irrational worries. If we do not put them down, they will crush us.

Energy is the currency of hope. And hope is what carries us forward even when circumstances are against us. To spend that energy chasing things beyond our control is like pouring water into sand, it disappears, leaving us thirsty. Instead, we can choose to direct our energy where it matters: to the small steps that improve our days, to the people and projects that give us meaning, to the quiet rituals that keep us grounded. The rest, the chaos, the injustice, the cruelty belongs to life itself. We acknowledge it, but we do not hand over our strength to it.

There were long stretches in my life when silence was my closest companion. No reassuring voices, no constant exchange of comfort. At first, that silence felt heavy, even punishing. But over time, it taught me something valuable: strength often grows not from abundance, but from absence. From not having every comfort, we learn which discomforts are worth enduring. From not having constant reassurance, we discover the voice within us that can reassure ourselves. In silence, I learned that life will always be both cruel and kind, and that my survival depends not on changing that truth, but on choosing where to place my energy.

So how do we keep life from draining us? By accepting the whole picture. By acknowledging that life will never be entirely fair, entirely beautiful, or entirely kind. It will always be an agglomeration: light and shadow, laughter and tears. We cannot demand only white without black, only beauty without ugliness. What we can do is step back and see the tapestry for what it is: a pattern that makes sense only when both are woven together. And in that acceptance, worry loses some of its power. We no longer chase perfection. We simply live: awake, resilient, and unwilling to surrender our hope.

Life will always test us. Circumstances beyond our control will arrive at our doorstep, uninvited and unkind. But we have a choice: to let them drain us, or to meet them with the quiet strength of someone who knows how to distinguish between what can be acted upon and what must be endured. Hope survives when energy is preserved. And energy is preserved when we let go of the worries that do not belong to us. To live is not to escape contradiction, but to walk through it with steady steps, knowing we are stronger than we once believed.