At some point, you’re going to have to start being real with yourself about life. And I mean really being real. Not just about the things you want to happen, but about the things you know are going to happen whether you want them to or not.

It’s something I’ve been thinking about lately. There are certain experiences that have been part of being human for thousands of years. People have been going through them since the beginning of time, and somehow, we’re still allowing some of those same experiences to completely take us out of the life we’re here to enjoy.

Think about it. When you have children, you know they’re going to grow up. You know one day they’re going to become adults, make their own decisions, build their own lives, and eventually need you differently than they did when they were little. You knew that the day they were born. But when that season starts changing, so many of us struggle to accept it because we’re still holding on to how things used to be.

The same thing happens with getting older. You know you’re going to age. You know your parents are getting older. You know the people you grew up watching, the people who seemed like they would always be around, are getting older too.

And as you move through your 30s, 40s, 50s, and beyond, you’re naturally going to start experiencing more loss. People you love, people you grew up with, people who played important roles in your life. Some of them aren’t going to be here for the entire journey.

Man, that’s life.

And I know that’s uncomfortable to hear. Believe me, I’m not trying to minimize anybody’s pain. Losing somebody you love hurts. Sometimes it hurts in ways you couldn’t have imagined, even when you knew it was coming. You’re supposed to feel that. You’re supposed to allow yourself to grieve, cry, remember, and process whatever comes up.

But I want you to consider something.

Just because something is painful doesn’t mean you have to spend the rest of your life resisting the fact that it happened.

There’s a difference between grieving somebody you love and feeling like you can no longer enjoy your own life because they’re gone.

And I understand that everybody’s journey is different. I’m not putting a time limit on anybody’s grief. Some losses take years to learn how to live with. Some change you forever.

But I do believe there’s something worth understanding about the nature of life itself.

We cannot continue to expect a life where nothing changes, nobody leaves, everybody stays healthy, our children remain little, and everything works out exactly the way we imagined it.

That life has never existed.

And sometimes I wonder how much unnecessary suffering we create simply because we’re struggling to accept something that was always part of the experience.

See, life is going to have its ups and downs. You’re going to have seasons where everything feels beautiful, and you’re going to have seasons where you’re just trying to make sense of what’s happening. You’re going to laugh, cry, celebrate, lose, grow, and experience things you never saw coming.

And the beautiful part is that you can learn how to move through all of it without losing your appreciation for being here.

You can miss somebody and still enjoy your day. You can be sad about a chapter ending and still be excited about the next one. You can acknowledge that something hurts without allowing that pain to become the only thing you experience.

That’s not being heartless. That’s learning how to live.

Because while you’re spending all those years wishing something hadn’t happened, life is still happening. The sun is still coming up. Your children are still growing. There are people who still love you, experiences you haven’t had, places you haven’t seen, and beautiful moments you haven’t even imagined yet.

And I would hate for you to miss all of that because you’re still fighting with a part of life that you cannot change.

Man, this experience is precious. And the more I understand about it, the more I realize that the beauty isn’t in everything going my way. It’s in learning how to appreciate the journey, even when it takes a turn I wouldn’t have chosen.

You don’t have to love every experience to accept that it’s part of life. And accepting something doesn’t mean you’re happy it happened. Sometimes acceptance simply means you’re no longer going to let what happened keep you from living.

So when I say be real with yourself, that’s what I mean.

Be real about growing older. Be real about change. Be real about the fact that nothing in this physical experience is going to stay exactly the same forever.

And most importantly, be real about how much life you still have available to you right now.

Because one day, this moment you’re living in will be something you wish you could experience again, too.

You keep saying you want people to be real with you. You get frustrated because you feel like nobody’s real anymore. But maybe the most important person you need to start being real with is yourself.

And maybe the first thing you need to get real about is life itself.