Staying Afloat

My best effort coasting through highs and lows of life

Simone Gobbo
Aug 8, 2017 · 3 min read

The past months have been pretty hard. They’ve been weird.

My old business crumbling apart. Getting started again. Moving my newborn company to a new city. Working on new projects.

I have been floating between ups and downs. Moments where I feel invincible and ready for everything. Moments where I feel hopeless, depressed, where nothing seems to make any sense.

I must say, I am becoming a bit better at understanding and navigating through these moments. This self-awareness brought me to understand that I am not invincible when I feel good. At the same time, it’s not all doom and gloom in my bad moments.

It took time. It’s will take some more.


Gaining this kind of awareness is an ongoing process. A personal and very intimate path. After a while, you come to realise that there will always be highs and there will always be lows. You come to realise that life is everything that sits in-between them.

Good and bad are two different pages of the same book. Highs and lows. Moments where you feel inspired and moments where you’d want to give everything up.

Life is just how you react to those moments.

Living is just a constant sailing on a never ending river. Sometimes is flat, pleasant, but almost boring. Sometimes you speed up and enjoy your ride. Sometimes you have to face rapids. At that point is on you. If you don’t react you will sink. It’s as straightforward as that.

Getting to learn this sometimes proves to be too hard to be bearable. It feels like everybody and everything is playing against you.

You put all you’ve got into building something. You do your best trying to achieve something. You’ve got plans and dreams. Most of the time you’ll see everything fall a part around you. But that’s not the universe angry at you.

It’s part of existing.

It’s like building a sand castle on a beach. You are proud of it. You’ve put to work all the skills and energies you had. It looks amazing. Suddenly a wave comes and destroys your masterpiece. At this point, you can give up and blame the universe or get a grip and build a new castle. Bigger. Better. Hopefully further away from the sea.

You will always have a choice. Giving up or transforming your setbacks in platforms for becoming a better version of yourself. Learn from the difficulties. Cherish the obstacles that life throws your way because they’re your opportunity to prove yourself. To prove the person you are.

Always build another castle. Maybe the sea will reclaim it again, but you can’t give up. Love the process. Stack up the experience and put it to good use.


Facing adversities is inevitable. Living moments of complete ecstasy will happen too. Don’t let these extremes steer you away from the things that actually count.

Having dreams. Cultivating relationships. Savouring instants.

Everything in-between is what really matters. Everything in-between is what prepares you to survive the highs and the lows. That’s where all the interesting stuff happens. It’s up to you embracing it or not.

It all starts and ends with you.



In case you’ve missed my last post.Thank you for your attention. If you liked what I had to say, hit the heart button or drop me a comment, keep in touch following me. It would mean a lot.


I’d love to connect with you. Hit me up on Instagram, Twitter or drop me an email at simone@creativekernel.com!

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