“The world we look at today is not the same world we will see tomorrow.”

Charles Flynn Allen

Emotions are part of who we are, but sometimes, we need to step back.

Having gone through some major changes in my life, ones that have upset my balance and my routines to the point that I found myself in a poor emotional state, I can say that it’s very easy to lose perspective.

When emotions are hot — when you are afraid, lonely, out of depth, and uncertain — what once seemed easy can suddenly appear like a mountain you cannot possibly climb. My emotions created this mountain. I needed to step back. I could not make a sound decision when my mind had so much discordance. If I chose my next actions based on how I felt, I know I’d regret it.

While there are some times when it is good to act when the emotions are strong, this wasn’t one of them.

Around that time I came upon an interesting quote from an interview between Farnham Streets’ Shane Parrish and the LA Rams GM Les Snead:

“Tomorrow’s probably going to be here and whatever happened today, there’s a chance it gets better tomorrow. And what I do know is once the emotions of whatever happened dissipates, there’s actually learning, there’s an adventure to be had.”

Les Snead

When the emotions begin to subside, there is room for learning, for growth, and for moving on. That’s it. In times like this, we need to let the emotions settle before we act, and also let the emotions settle before we judge the opportunity of the situation — because there is so much to learn in the places we least suspect.

Furthermore, oftentimes the things that happen that appear so terrible are adventures in disguise, opportunities waiting… sometimes, we just need to step back, let the wild seas of our emotions settle, and only then decide how to handle things.

And most of all, know that tomorrow will arrive — and that things get better.

Keep going.