Today might the worst day of your life, and that's ok 😔
That’s quite the headline, isn’t it? But then again, you’re reading this on Christmas Day. Desperate times calls for desperate measures etc.
If you are reading this on Christmas Day, here’s some food for thought: if there are 8 billion people on the planet, and the average life span is roughly 26,000 days (71 years in old money), then there are roughly 300,000 people right now having the worst day of their lives. On Christmas bloody Day.
If that’s you today, then I’m sorry. The cosmic lottery of worse-day bingo has called your number and you’ve fallen into your own abyss; alone, and without a light. It’s terrible in there. If that’s the case, I want to tell you: it’s ok.
You see, the abyss is a place that lives in all of us. You may have already visited it, or it may be something that lies ahead. Whatever side of the chasm you stand on, I want you to know this: everyone will have at least one visit, and everyone will deal with it differently.
But what we do know is that some of the world’s best-known musicians, artists, creatives, and politicians have been where you are right now. You’re in good company.
“Were I to vanish from the face of the earth today, it would be no great loss to Russian music” - those were the words of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, you know the Russian composer who wrote the score for The Nutcracker and Swan Lake.
Abraham Lincoln lost his mother at 9, his sister at 19, and later, his 11-year-old son. “I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth,” he wrote to a friend.
Frida Kahlo had probably more terrible days than anyone. At 18 the artist was involved in a horrific traffic accident when a tram crashed into the bus she was travelling on.
Matt Hussey
Her spinal column and pelvis were each broken in three places; her collarbone and two ribs broke as well. Her right leg, the one deformed by polio, was shattered, and fractured in 11 places, and her right foot was dislocated and crushed.
She underwent 30 operations to fix the above, and eventually lost her leg. In fact, looking into the history books, there are surprisingly few people who have not fallen into their own abyss.
Here’s a mini list of people whose worst days have been well-documented.
There are millions upon millions of people who feel or have felt the way you do right now. You are not alone.
A punch in the face 🥊
People have been around in one form or another for nearly 2 million years. We’ve learned a lot in that time: how to build things, how to harness the world around us, how to leave the planet, how to cook an omelet in 14 seconds.
We’ve learned how to put our bodies back to together, but we still don’t know how to fix the soul when life takes a run-up and kicks it square in the nuts. When we suffer, we really, really suffer, and it’s terrible.
It’s the one thing that seems constant throughout history: the abyss is in all of us. And that’s ok. But why is it ok? Why on earth does our heads process emotional pain in the same way as physical pain? Why does the loss of a loved one feel like we’ve been shot? We don’t really know.
But what we know about this species of ours is that our entire history is littered with absolute terror: plagues, famines, wars, more wars, colonialism, wars, more plagues, oh, and wars.
Matt Hussey
I asked Google if there was a single point in history that everyone could agree on was utterly terrible for all concerned. And there was one according to a Harvard historian: the year 536.
In that year, a mysterious fog plunged Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia into darkness, day and night—for 18 months. Crops failed, people starved, and a plague turned up to finish those that had survived what became the coldest decade in 2,300 years.
The known world had slipped into the abyss, alone, together. But few outside academia have ever really heard of it. But what does seem to happen during these periods of absolute poo is they pass. And with the elapsing of time, we tend to explode with meaning-making and new ways of living.
The Englightenment came out of the 30 years war that left 8 million dead in the 1600s. The Black Death gave birth to humanism; the founding idea that most of our society is now built on. Existentialism, stoicism, and Confucianism, all emerged after periods when life was crap.
Matt Hussey
When we finally find a way out of the abyss, we tend to go back to have a look around. Except this time we have a light, and this time what we see is all the marks left behind by everyone else who ever found themselves lost in their own personal abyss.
This might be the worst day of your life, but it will pass. The fog will lift, the emotional famine will pass and you will be able to look back and reflect on what was a shit day.
There’s a wonderful French word I learned recently: Énouement. The bittersweet feeling of seeing how the future turns out, but being unable to tell your past self that all will be well. I love this idea.
That inside you are future selves lying in wait to greet you once you emerge from this dark period. Until the next time.
Matt Hussey
Each time you find yourself in the place you are in right now, know that there is life on the other side and that life can be full of meaning, and understanding, and kindness. You just need to weather this storm.
When Frida Kahlo was asked about the incredible pain she had endured throughout her life she said, “At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.”
You can endure this day. You can find a way out of the abyss. You can find that future self waiting. You just have to keep going.
I love you all.
Things we learned this week 🤓
- 🍔 The more fast food you eat, the more likely you are to suffer from depression
- 🧠 Our brains are surprisingly slow at thinking.
- 🌳 Lost a loved one? Spending time outside can help.
- 🤔 Are morals connected to how intelligent? This study certainly thinks so.
Just a list of proper mental health services I always recommend 💡
Here is a list of excellent mental health services that are vetted and regulated that I share with the therapists I teach:
- 👨👨👦👦 Peer Support Groups - good relationships are one of the quickest ways to improve wellbeing. Rethink Mental Illness has a database of peer support groups across the UK.
- 📝 Samaritans Directory - the Samaritans, so often overlooked for the work they do, has a directory of organisations that specialise in different forms of distress. From abuse to sexual identity, this is a great place to start if you’re looking for specific forms of help.
- 💓 Hubofhope - A brilliant resource. Simply put in your postcode and it lists all the mental health services in your local area.
I love you all. 💋