The Sun Will Always Return

A few days ago, when I posted the caption “your life is as good as your mindset” — there was an incredibly valid question asked in the comments: 

“But isn’t life easier on some than others? People go through achingly painful battles that their mindset can’t fix.” 

I sincerely believe that this question was asked out of genuine curiosity, and not spite towards my perception of life. And it definitely made me think.

Let’s be clear: there is so much that I do not know. There are questions I will never be able to answer, for both you guys and for myself. Sure, I come on here and string together sentences that are occasionally inspiring or thought provoking. But I am no more capable of learning from life than anyone else is. I have just chosen to be open to life’s lessons. 

I am not special, and to believe that I am would be counterintuitive to my life’s mission as a whole. If I make myself “special” for choosing love and learning and spirituality, the special-ness I place upon myself suggests that I’m doing something that most people can’t do. This is not at all the case. Everyone — no matter your race, gender, sexual orientation, social class, shape, size, food intolerances — can perceive life as a beautiful experience of learning and loving.

My point in saying all of this is: I am learning just the same way everyone else is. Life brings me lessons each day, often more than one, just as it does each of you. The difference between me and most people, then, is how I respond to these lessons. Where someone else asks “why me?” or “why today?” I simply say “thank you.”

Sometimes I ask life for lessons, too. I sit in uncertainty, and I tell the universe — out loud, so that I know it hears me — “Guide me to whatever lessons I need to learn, for I promise that I will deliberate on each lesson with the patience and mindfulness of a dedicated student.” 

My perspective on life is a gift, yes. But it’s a gift available to everyone. I didn’t come up with this sh*t myself, unfortunately. I learned it. And maybe people will say I “learned it the hard way.” I don’t really care about how you learned something. It’s not important to me whether you learned about life through loss and trauma and hardship or if you simply picked up a self-help book and learned from that. All that matters is that you’re open to learning.

You see, we’re all capable of seeing life as a learning experience, a storybook full of chapters — some good and some seemingly worse — in which everything makes sense in the end. 

Gary Zukav calls this concept of life as a learning experience: The Earth School.

We are all enrolled in The Earth School upon being born. It’s not up to us. We have to participate to some degree. But it’s very possible to do the bare minimum. It’s possible to sit in the classroom that is everyday life, and choose to reject the curriculum. The universe, our teacher, speaks to these people and they think: what is he (or she or they) talking about? I don’t need to know this. I don’t want to be here. These people deny themselves the opportunity to learn, and thus remain stagnant in their progress.

And then there are the people who get out their notepads, who ask the teacher questions and attempt to solve the difficult equations, trying every possible solution before even thinking about giving up — before even entertaining the possibility of failure. These are the true students of life. And although some might say we’re all students simply based on the fact that we’re all enrolled in “The Earth School”, I believe that what makes a student is not their enrollment status, but their willingness to learn. Sitting in a classroom doesn’t really make you a student. It just makes you someone sitting in a classroom. But when you’re sitting in the classroom and you’re aware of the fact that every moment is an opportunity to learn, you become a student. 

Like I said earlier, I often ask the universe to teach me. I tell the Universe “I am ready to learn.” And so it goes, giving me answers and reminders and signs and whatever else I might need to help me understand the lesson that is to be learned. 

So when I got this comment,“But isn’t life easier on some than others? People go through achingly painful battles that their mindset can’t fix”, I answered it to the best of my ability. I anchored in my faith in goodness and responded saying I know there will be trials that test our mindset. There will be crises that are out of our control. I explained that if we can understand that each challenge, no matter the magnitude, is part of our path, then that is when our mindset becomes a superpower. 

But even then, I wasn’t so sure about my answer. I believed my own response, but still, I wanted to find the right guidance. I just wasn’t sure if I knew what that was. So I asked the universe once again: “guide me to the answer, I am open to enduring any lessons that I must encounter to get there.”

And then I forgot about the comment and went on with my day.

Later that afternoon, I was sitting on the beach, reading my book in the sun when I saw some storm clouds rolling in. Pretty soon, it started to rain. I was prepared to gather my things and walk back inside, but I looked around and noticed that nobody else was leaving their spots on the beach. So I decided to stay too. We all just sat there in the rain for fifteen minutes. And eventually, the clouds blew through and the sun returned. 

And then again a few minutes later, the same thing happened: sun enveloped by dark rain clouds, nobody leaves the beach, we all sit in the rain, clouds disappear, and the sun comes again. 

This is when I realized that I had found my answer to the question in the comments. The universe was offering me the answer I had asked for.

Immediately upon having this epiphany, I wrote in my notes app: “Just because it’s raining doesn’t mean we need to leave the beach.” 

This little metaphor might not mean anything to you just yet, so let me explain. 

Let’s say we’re really happy in life. We’ve had a wonderful few months. We feel like everything’s been great. Life feels: sunny. We’re the person sitting on the beach, soaking up the sun and reveling under the blue skies. 

And then we’re faced with a challenge:

A relationship ends 

We lose a loved one 

We’re diagnosed with an illness 

We get rejected by our dream school

The storm clouds start to roll in. The once blue sky now appears to be covered by ominous shades of grey and black. The rain begins to pour. So we pack up our things, deciding to leave the beach because we’re certain that the sun won’t be coming back. Our beach day is ruined; we sit inside and watch the rain fall to the ground, resenting the water droplets and grey clouds for taking away our sunny day. 

This is, often times, how we look at life. We’re happy, and things are great. We’re enjoying our sunny beach day. And then something difficult comes along, a challenge from the universe, and we decide that this challenge has forever ruined our happiness. We think: this storm is so huge, so powerful — there will never be a sunny day again. We think: life will never be good again — not after this; nothing will ever be the same. We convince ourselves that this storm will wipe out every aspect of our life that the sun has ever touched, enveloping our existence in darkness.

Well, I have news. Nothing can ever be “the same” as the time that preceded it. Every particle of the universe is changing constantly. So nothing is ever the same. We cannot stop life from going, and from changing. And to act like we have any control over life’s ever-changing nature is more naive than any of my optimism ever could be. 

Life will happen. There will be sunny days, of course. But as we all know, the rain will come. The storm clouds will brew. Sometimes we’ll get a drizzle and other times it’ll be a thunderstorm. There’s really no knowing.

But do you know what I learned sitting there in the rain the other day? 

I learned that while getting rained on certainly isn’t comfortable, it didn’t hurt me. Those cold water droplets and fierce winds weren’t ideal. They weren’t pleasant. But they sure as hell didn’t kill me. 

So here is my advice to you:

You are withstanding. You are strong enough to weather each storm that life brings you, no matter how much you want to pack your things and leave the beach. No matter how dark it gets or how loud the thunder becomes, I promise you, the sun will return. Yes, it may be raining now, but you will come to know the feeling of the sun on your skin again. I don’t know when, but you will. That much I’m sure of. 

So when the storm comes, I challenge you to stay on the beach. To sit in discomfort as the water droplets hit your face and dampen your once-dry towel. And as you’re sitting there in the rain, weathering the storm, remind yourself of my promise to you: the sun will always return.