Time.

People have always said that time heals all things. I, however, have not found that to be necessarily true in my own life. Sure, time can aid in easing pain, it can help you grow, and (if you’re lucky) it can help you move on. But time is not some cure-all answer to every problem you face. Time doesn’t heal you. It takes so much more than that to overcome an obstacle, an issue, or even a person. I often find myself waiting around for things to get better, but recently I’ve had to face the hard fact that it’s just not that simple. Lately I’ve been surrounded by people telling me how to react, how to deal with, how to move past a certain situation… and the advice I’ve been hearing the most is, “give it time.” While I understand where this comes from, let’s be honest, it’s nothing more than the easy way out. “Giving it time” doesn’t help anyone overcome a problem any more than ignoring it does. It will simply build up the pain, the tension, the emotions associated with whatever you are dealing with. Almost exactly 3 years ago, I went through what I thought would be the most emotionally and mentally scarring situation in my life. While it was nothing short of life altering, my more recent experience has definitely taken an even larger toll in its own way. And as I sit here, thinking about these last 3 years… time has not fixed the hurt that I went through. I still pay the price for the decisions I made, even after all of this time. So I’m forced to accept the difficult truth: time won’t fix this pain. We all make choices everyday, choices that result in both rewards and consequences. The reality is, though, that just because something doesn’t work out, doesn’t mean that it never will. So often what we view as a negative outcome later brings about something far greater than we could ever have imagined. Patience really is a virtue. It’s just a matter of either waiting on something (or someone) to come around, or simply finding the good in why they never did. The most any person can do is have faith in God and accept life for what it is: an extremely difficult, rugged, and heartbreaking but beautiful journey.