“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” -Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
One of the hardest tasks we have in life is to overcome all of the obstacles that come our way. Every person faces a time in his or her life in which the decision of whether to fight the battle or to surrender must be made. Whether the obstacle is big or small, it takes courage and perseverance to move past it.
As we grow up, we have a lot of decisions to make — picking a school, a boyfriend, a car… the list goes on. Some decisions are easier to make than others, but questioning whether we made the right decision happens in a lot of cases. We often dwell on choices we have made by wondering if they were the right ones and wondering what would have happened had we chosen another path, but this can drive us crazy.
I have spent months being unable to shake a thought from my head. I have beaten myself up for mistakes I have made, and I have had a hard time forgiving myself and letting them go. As hard as it is to truly move past hardships, it is doable. When life hands me an obstacle that I just cannot find a way out of, I remind myself that I will get through it and be stronger because of it. I would not be who I am today without the losses and the lows that I have endured. Though I still feel sad sometimes about things that have happened in the past, I find comfort in knowing that each day it gets a little bit easier.
We all have a person or a few people in our lives whom we strongly admire because of their strength and positivity. We admire them because they give us hope, and we love them because they show us that we have more fight within ourselves than we realize. These people are absolutely beautiful, and so are you. Use what you’ve experienced to make yourself a more beautiful person. Make the choice to be loving, strong, kind, and, most importantly, beautiful.