My Personal Mantra

Recently, I was asked by someone what my personal mantra was – what helps me to keep going through rough phases of life. This is a really difficult one. When we are going through rough times, it is really difficult to focus on the bright side of things. Even though we hope that everything will fall in place eventually, it is really difficult to see that. Yet, somehow we need to keep going and we do in fact move along and come out the other side.

If you ask a person who is going through a rough phase in life, what their mantra is, they might not be able to tell you. Yes there are some people who hold it together, but for the rest of us, it won’t be easy to figure out our mantra. Even after we get through the rough phase, we probably won’t know how we held it together and how we made it through those times. Once we are past that phase, we try not to think about it much. We don’t go back and analyze what helped us get through.

I certainly had to think about it a lot. What is my personal mantra? Do I even have one? What helps me get through rough patches of life? How do I know everything will be okay in the end? It is just usually a blind belief that everything will end well. It is the hope that keeps me going I guess. But, after really thinking about it, I said my mantra is that “There is always light at the end of the tunnel.

I think this is really true. Even though it is difficult for us to see or believe it all the time, this is true. We need to focus on the fact that we will get through it somehow. But, there is something else to this as well. I also believe that, we have to give our 100% to whatever we do. If we are stuck, and we do nothing to get out that situation, then we probably won’t be able to see the light at all. It will be really difficult sometimes, but I believe that it is in our power to go towards the light.

I have seen multiple examples of this personally in my life and in the people close to me. The part that becomes difficult is to keep moving forward when it gets tough. When we cannot see the way forward or when we are in denial about what happened, we do not want to step up and do the things that will push us through the tunnel to the other side. It is very difficult sometimes to step up. But, this is the time when we do need to motivate ourselves to do the one thing that is in our hands.

Sometimes, after all the effort we put in, we might get through the rough phase, but the end result might not be what we imagined it to be. In that case, do we feel like we are out of the rough phase and we are happy? This is the trickiest part of all. The light at the end of the tunnel is how we perceive it to be I guess. If we do not get the results we hoped for, is it all lost? Although it might seem like it at first, it really is not lost until we give up. As long as we are working towards improving our lives, nothing is lost.

This question became more relevant to me in the past couple of days after the recent election. I was devastated with the results, but there is nothing we can do about it now. I was thinking if my mantra can help me get through this? Is this really a rough phase? In some ways, yes it is. It feels bad that we are in this situation, but I also feel like everything happens for a reason. We don’t know why this happened. The people analyzing the election results will have their own theories – each one very different from the other. But, the reality is that we are in this for the next 4 years whether we like it or not.

So, I decided I will brace myself and keep going. Accepting the reality is the first step. What I can do after that is to keep myself informed of the news, keep working hard to build my career and teach my kids the right way forward. The best way to build the future is to raise the next generation to be stronger and kinder than us. That is the biggest gift we can give this world. We don’t have to raise world leaders, but we can raise kids who believe in the good of the world, who will do what is right even when it is difficult.

So, yes there is light at the end of the tunnel. We won’t be able to see it now, but eventually we will if we keep doing the right things. Things might seem difficult and hopeless now, but I hope for the benefit of us all, it won’t be too bad.

If you have a personal mantra, please share it in your comment.