Despair

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poem “The Rainy Day”

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’ -Rudyard Kipling, poem “If”

Despair: (noun) An utter loss of hope

The image above is from the film, The Neverending Story. The hero, Atreyu, after battling “The Nothing” succumbs to despair in “The Swamps Of Sadness.” He loses his faithful horse, Artax. All hope is lost. It’s over. He can’t fight any more.

That’s how it goes sometimes. Maybe for you, it’s right now. You did everything you could. Nothing’s working. No signs of progress. You’re beaten down. Engulfed in sadness. You feel like you can’t go on.

Like Atreyu, you feel like you’re gonna drown.

But then, right at your lowest point, right when you’re going through your dark night of the soul, right when you can’t see five inches in front of your face, let alone any light in the distance, something turns.

For Atreyu, it’s a luck dragon, Falkor. To the rescue. He sweeps up Atreyu and whisks him away.

For us, it’s a combination of blind faith, endurance, and the sheer willingness to hold on. To believe that…

“This too shall pass.”

And when it does, when you get through this darkness and come out on the other side, and you will, please do whatever you can to be that Falkor for someone else. Your encouragement is everything.