On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living

by Alan Noble

The goal is not to reason your brain out of despair. That rarely works, in my experience. Instead, it’s to form habits that in their very nature affirm what you know to be true when you don’t feel it to be true. When you are tired, sick, stressed, burned out from doing some thankless good work—any time you are vulnerable to self-doubt—be ready to label it as the lie it is and move on. You’ll probably still feel bad, but that’s okay. Just

The command that provides me the most comfort is the last one: remembering that your suffering is unique but not special. I suppose that’s sort of the point of this little book. Whatever you are going through, an element of that pain is inexpressible. Your personal experience of illness, or mental suffering, or trauma is unique. It happened to you in ways that only you and God can understand. But that doesn’t mean it’s special. If you come to believe that your suffering is yours alone, you will believe that you are the problem. The world would be better off without you because you are the one who is messed up, who can’t seem to get it together. But

Peter says. Whatever you are going through, the world is filled with people suffering similarly. There are unique qualities to your experience, but you aren’t alone. There are Christ...

The “little while” you suffer in this life may very well last a lifetime. Suffering is a normal part of life. But you can remind yourself that it is not the ultimate truth. It ends.

This is not stoicism but an acknowledgment that an essential part of life is bearing with suffering with the knowledge that suffering does not have the final say. And even when our minds deceive us into hopelessness, we cannot shake the truth that life is still precious. Perhaps we cannot sense the preciousness of our own lives, but the lives of our loved ones feel inherently sacred. We love them, which means we feel the goodness of their existence even when we can’t feel the goodness of our own. And in those moments we must remember that the decision to scorn the goodness of our own life is always an invitation for others to scorn their lives too. As much as you may wish to isolate your despair to yourself; as much as you may wish to make your worthlessness or misery a special, private case; as much as you may feel your meaninglessness applies only to you—that is not how we are perceived.