This Too Shall Pass

Everyone needs a motto, an aphorism that helps guide them through life. It could be something as easy as a few simple words that encapsulate who you are as a person and what you hope to gain from every day you have on this spinning ball hurtling through space.

You know. Something that simple.

In my case, those four words that make up the title of this article have become very important to me over the last couple of years. I had heard them hundreds of times before but it wasn’t until the worst happened to me that I truly understand them. Now, not a day goes by that I don’t repeat them to myself.

It was the Worst of Times…

Saying I didn’t see it coming would be untrue and unfair. I knew my wife had been unhappy for a long time. I tried to talk to her, figure out how I could make our marriage better or how I could be better. But she either couldn’t tell me or didn’t want to. Honestly, I still don’t know.

What I didn’t see coming was that I would find out that I was losing my job on the same day my wife left me. The conversation about the my employment situation led to a much larger conversation about us. By the end of it, she was packing her bags and leaving for good.

It’s hard for me to imagine a worse day in my life. I had gone through rough times before, but nothing like that. Even worse, I knew my kids would be home from school in a few hours and I was going to have to talk to them about everything. It wasn’t a conversation I was looking forward to.

The one thing everyone kept telling me was that it would take time to heal. Those people had no idea how right they were. Nearly two years later, I’m better now than I was before. At the same time, I still have a long ways to go before I’m whole again, if that ever happens. That’s where those four little words come in.

The Phrase

“This too shall pass” has been around for a long, long time, and has been incorrectly attributed to the Bible. The full version of the phrase, “And this, too, shall pass away,” originated in a Persian story about King Solomon. The story also appears in Jewish folklore, having been recounted by the likes of Edward FitzGerald and Abraham Lincoln.

In the years since it became part of the Western lexicon, it was shortened to the version people are most familiar with, “This too shall pass.” Modern life coach and former monk Jay Shetty has used it on multiple occasions. Tom Hanks even brought it up in a discussion with other actors about life advice he wished he had gotten when he was younger.

These simple words are possibly the most effective treatise on the subject of impermanence in life. Are you in the midst of the best time of your life? This too shall pass. Do you feel like you’re trapped in the worst time of your life? This too shall pass.

Life is ever changing. It’s constantly morphing into something, regardless of what you think you want to be. Time heals all wounds because things change. Nothing is permanent except death, and a lot of cultures question even that. For this reason, this phrase is so incredibly powerful.

This Too Shall Pass

When I was in the midst of my life falling apart, it felt like I would be stuck in that moment forever. Then I heard Jay Shetty says that phrase. And then I heard Tom Hanks say it. Maybe it was just at the right moment, but those words resonated with me and I realized how true they actually are.

Every morning I got up, looked myself in the mirror, and said, “This too shall pass.” No matter how bad I felt. No matter how good I felt. I said those words to myself and accepted that things would change. Repeating that phrase made me realize that the best any of us can do is survive what life throws at us. So survive is what I did.

Again, it’s nearly two years later and I feel better about life than I could have possibly imagined. Life is great. But I also know this will eventually pass, as well. There are any numbers of ways life could go wrong but I know I can handle them because those bad times will eventually fade away. Everything does.

I know there are a lot of things in life I simply cannot control, like whatever caused my ex-wife to make the choices she did. That’s for her to reconcile. For me, I know that I can survive, grow, and thrive, as long as I remember that everything life throws at me, good or bad, will eventually pass.