worse before better
January 19th, 2024
Sometimes things have to get worse before they can get better.
We make a mess of things, and then the breakthroughs and improvements come.
It might sound nice to say, such as with a career or marriage or parenting role, “it’s only gotten better and better, as the years go by!”
And while this sentiment may hold true throughout the big picture – the overall trajectory of the experience and richness – it’s not always true in each moment.
Sometimes it gets worse first. Sometimes it’s bad for a while before it gets better again – even if that “better” is better than ever before.
When you are in something for the long haul, you will hit seasons that are seemingly bad, and those seasons can also bring the greatest gifts.
In most things, we actually cannot arrive at the best it could be without going through some of the worst seasons too. Much to our distaste, they shape us. They transform us. They bring us closer together.
…if we’ll let them. If we lean in and allow it.
The collateral beauty of hardship. The opportunity and lessons in struggle, resilience, and trying.
This deepness of life, relationships, and satisfaction we want to reach can only come through persistent dedication to the return. To keep coming back to the vows we make, over and over again, through any scenario, knowing that continuing on together and finding out what’s on the other side of this storm is better than starting over somewhere else or with someone else.
When we love something, when we are committed to something or someone good and wholehearted that enriches our lives and makes us better, there are no promises that things will always be easy. The opposite is true: love will be hard. Work we care passionately about will be hard. Sticking with the meaningful requires grit.
But when we love something or someone, the sacred practice is sticking with it. The magic comes through the joys AND the trials. The depth and intimacy, loyalty and contentment, safety and meaning – they grow over time, through weathering anything that comes, and choosing to stay anyway.
It’s how things get better. It’s how we find the rich love and life we long for. We build it.
Even when it gets messier (harder, worse, more unknown) for a while before it gets better.
