The Simplest Way To Feel Happy When You See No Hope

Palak Upadhyay
ILLUMINATION
Published in
2 min readJun 12, 2022
Photo by Ripley Elisabeth Brown 🧿 ៚ on Unsplash

The lockdown was definitely a time when anxiety and panic were my nearly everyday thing. There would be times when I would cry for hours, without no reason, in particular, criticize my body and looks, hate my entire lifestyle, yet not have the energy to change it for the better.

And I know I wasn’t the only one who felt miserable being locked up for over 12 months. So I’d often hide my emotions from my family and lock them up in my journal before I’d go downstairs to have dinner because, well, I really didn’t wish to talk about things going wrong in my life and ruin the quality time we got to spend with each other, over dinner.

So I’d look at e-mails received and read through similar disappointments several times a day. Then cry, vent out in my journal, pick up my guitar to either play a song that gave me hope, which at the time was “Don’t Let it Break Your Heart” by Louis Tomlinson, or would pen down some lyrics of my own until I could finally breathe and feel better.

And then, I’d wash my face and run downstairs when called for dinner and make jokes about the things that made me cry, and jokes about the most random political news, (coz you don’t get sued for those at home :)) until the three very beautiful members of my family would laugh and smile.
In that very moment, I would drop my shoulders as I’d look at them drop theirs to celebrate the only success we often ignore.

Life.

Let’s be honest. Life is not that easy. But hey, it’s not that hard either! And if it feels like it, trust me, the reward will be worth it! And until then, know this.

Anytime you feel like there is no light around you, that darkness wraps you around like a thick blanket, know that hope might just be beside you. Sometimes a spark is all you need, and sometimes, a feeling of warmth is more than enough to let you know that hope is around.

I found hope in the darkest of times simply by being the reason for someone’s smile. Compliment someone on their new haircut, give a stranger a hug, or give someone an extra tip. You never know what someone is going through, and they might not know your pain. But making someone’s day by doing little things may not heal the pain, but it can definitely give both of you the strength to deal with it.

Smile, smile, smile! This curve can make the sharpest of curves on a road of life a little easier to deal with.

This was Day-9 of my 30-Day Writing Challenge. Thank you for reading :)

--

--

Palak Upadhyay
ILLUMINATION

A university student and an enthusiastic writer, I’ve written poetry & songs in Hindi and English. I have also written a novella and hope to publish one day :)