I’m an avid proponent of living in the moment, you’ll see that echoed all over this blog, but let’s be honest; some moments really stink. It’s hard to live in the tough moments – they’re not only not fun, they’re often painful. I’m going through a really rough time in a relationship right now and some days it feels like it’s sucking the life out of me. Every now and then I have gotten down enough to even question some of the things I believe and the path I’ve chosen. Massive self-doubt has crept in and can feel so oppressive and overwhelming. I’ve had a few mornings I just didn’t want to get out of bed and face the day.

Times like these are a reality of all of our lives. I’ve got a cousin going through a tough situation with his child, a close friend facing a debilitating health issue, another one facing a terminal illness. A lot of these kinds of moments that we face aren’t just moments, they can drag out for lengthy periods of time, and even become permanent.

Those are the times when we need to discover and develop resources to go on one more day, sometimes one more hour, sometimes just the next minute. I’m so grateful to have an outstanding therapist, several close friends and countless books, TED talks, YouTube videos, podcasts and other resources like those to turn to, to find hope, encouragement and a reminder that this moment may royally suck, but now is not tomorrow.

We make a grave mistake when we surround our problems with more of our problems. When we focus on what’s bad, wrong, negative – what shouldn’t be that we don’t want, but is. It’s a form of avoidance, and what we’re really avoiding is doing the work that will lead to our freedom. Yes, work; painful, hard, difficult, not fun – but needful if we’re going to survive this moment and get to the better tomorrow.

Wallowing and self-pity are the easy way, the very easy way. The feeling is right there, it’s inside of us, it’s right now and all we have to do is hook on to it, let it worm its way into our thoughts and emotions, let it come out of our mouths and consume us. We don’t have even have to work for it, just roll back over in bed or follow our negative thoughts and feelings. Tell ourselves how unjust it all is, tell those who will listen, draw out their sympathy and pity. Really add some steam to it all and turn it into a good old-fashioned depression.

Finding our center and regaining our emotional freedom takes hard work and constant effort, especially in the beginning. It’s choosing to have our time to grieve and feel the loss in our situation, but putting a limit on it. Not taking it so far down that road, that we can’t find our way back.

It starts with acceptance – true acceptance. Our situation is what it is. We can’t just wish away or even force away our feelings – they are legitimate and valid. Although they are unwanted, they have a right to be. We should let them be, because more than one thing can be true at the same time, and it’s those other things that deserve our focus.

I’m finding that true acceptance takes a lot of time. It’s not a switch I flip on or off. It’s more like a switch I flip on and then it trips. I have to go back into the dark basement to find the circuit that tripped, reset it and throw the switch on again. And again. And again. Some acceptances have taken me months, even years. Some, I’ll let you know when I get there, I’m still working on them…

There is another acceptance we need to quicky arrive at – tomorrow will not be the same as now. We say “this too shall pass”, or “the darkest hour is before the dawn”, or “after the clouds and rain comes the sun.” This is called hope. We need to constantly feed our hope. In my life, it’s become a disciplined, daily effort.

I’m learning that the wise man or woman doesn’t wait until the storms of life to begin feeding it, they do it in the bright sunshine of midday. They build up a reserve of hope inside of themselves, so that when the dark clouds of negative thoughts roll in, they have an internal well to draw from. I find great encouragement from the sources I named above, and I find great comfort in the promises of God from the Bible. Promises like Jeremiah 29:11, which says “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Psalm 91:14-15 says “Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call on me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him.”

I’ve found that when I make the move to access hope in the midst of my difficult situation, that – just like depression – it becomes a run-away train if I keep working at it and keep choosing it. A hopeful thought leads to another hopeful thought. A friend may come in with a timely word of encouragement. An upbeat song may pop-up in my playlist. An opportunity to do something for someone else may take my mind of my troubles for a bit. An idea (like this one) for my journal or blog may start rolling around in my mind.

When we follow these bits of hope and allow them to snowball and become fully formed ideas that we act on, we begin that train ride to freedom from our hurts. It’s not so much that the hurts go away, as much as we focus on opportunities, and hurts become less relevant. This is the actual process of how we turn our now’s into our tomorrows, without ever denying or running away from the reality and pain of them. Instead of acting on our negative thoughts and emotions by wallowing, we act on the hopeful ones instead. Making that choice has always led me through and out of my troubles.

Understand that our now is going to turn into our tomorrow no matter which path we choose. But also understand that we will have chosen it. Into our hands, hearts and minds will be poured the exact recompense of the investment we have made.

Since we’re going to make a choice – “if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice” says Neil Peart of Rush – why not choose to make the positive one? Why not choose to make the hopeful choice? Why not choose to say tomorrow is not now, and tomorrow will be better? I will not rest until it is. I will go through what I must go through to have what I want to have. I will not be beaten; I will not be kept down.

Think about all the times we’ve done that with a project at work. Or a craft project at home. We visualized the end we wanted, and we just kept hammering away until we’d achieved it. Didn’t it feel great? Didn’t we have a little pride of accomplishment? Maybe we even learned a new skill. We may have failed a couple of times, gone backwards for a while, but the dogged determination to get to the result, no matter the cost kept us going. It kept us fighting. It got us to where we wanted. And our tomorrow was no longer our now.

We can bring that same spirit and attitude to our worries, hurts and wounded emotions. We may not be able to change and influence other people and situations, but we can change us. We can become more in a negative situation. We can rise up, we can overcome. It’s never easy, it’s never usually quick, but it is 100% always possible. We have got to feed ourselves on this hope. Daily, regularly, constantly. One of my favorite Yes songs is “Without Hope You Cannot Start The Day”. That’s straight up truth.

I hope we can find some encouragement in these words, it’s why I’m writing them. Tomorrow will not be our now. Now is only what it is now. Tomorrow has promise of other, more and better. It’s also a blank canvas. We don’t know what is going to be there, but we can have a say about it. I don’t believe in fate, luck or chance. I believe in choice. We paint the canvases of our tomorrows with the hopes we carry today. The rest of our lives are unwritten stories. We hold the pen of our futures in our hands. Our pens are our thoughts, our dreams, our decisions.

Choices are fueled by something, either positive or negative. We can wallow in the negative of the now or we can keep our hope tanks full and write and paint the tomorrow we want. Our tomorrow is not our now. It will be what we determine it to be. It will take effort; it will take time. It will become what we put into it.

Do the work, feed your hope, achieve your dreams, become your best you.

I believe in you.