If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past three decades, it’s that life is full of ups and downs. 

Good times and bad times. 

Privileges and tribulations. 

Intricacies and simplicities. 

Successes and failures.

Fortunes and misfortunes. 

I know it’s not the most picturesque way to look at your life, but I think it’s the most realistic way to look at it — and there’s a natural beauty to it that most people fail to appreciate.

Like the peaks and valleys of a mountain. 

The ebbs and flows of an ocean tide. 

The waxes and wanes of the moon. 

The rising and setting of the sun. 

Like nature, life has a way of balancing itself out. Some days are going to be better than others. 

Some days you might feel like you’re on top of the world, and other days you might feel like you just came out of a 10-round boxing match. 

But there’s a beauty to that balance. 

You just have to find it — see it. 

And the sooner we find that beauty (not just find it, but understand, accept, and appreciate it), our lives will start to change — sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, but always in the right direction.

Always with good intentions. 

Always with purpose. 

And it’s that purpose — those good intentions — that allow us to turn any bad situation into a good situation (or, at the very least, into a better situation). 

Unfortunately, most of us don’t take advantage of the ‘downs’ in our life. We don’t take the time to understand them, accept them, and appreciate them.

Instead, we let these ‘down’ moments, situations, and circumstances control us — define us, even. 

And when we let them define us, they duplicate. 

One bad event after the next. 

One domino after the other. 

Like a contagious disease with one goal and one goal only — destruction. 

Pure destruction. 

That’s why I try to tell myself — don’t measure life only by its failures. When you do, life starts to look a whole lot more depressing — and none of us need that. 

Those ‘downs’ in life — the failures, bad times, tribulations, intricacies, misfortunes, valleys, flows, and wanes that we often experience — are meant to wake us up, not put us to sleep.

Motivate us, not deter us. 

Inspire us, not diminish us. 

Keep us on our toes, not encourage careless behavior — or recklessness.

Yet, most of us don’t see it that way — I tend to not see it that way sometimes. 

The good news is there’s a cure to this disease — and you don’t have to suffer from it. 

With purpose and good intentions, we can prevent that duplication which often sends us into a downward spiral — one that many of us struggle to conquer. 

We can prevent those ‘downs’ from controlling and/or defining us. And we can learn to appreciate those failures for motivating and inspiring us to do better. 

Because the truth is — those failures in life just make our successes that much sweeter. 

Which brings me to my next point — don’t measure life only by its successes. 

When we do, life starts to look a little too perfect — and there’s something about perfect that I don’t like. 

It sounds… restricting. 

I mean, what’s to gain from being perfect?

What’s to gain from having nothing to improve on? 

Or nothing to learn from?

Do any of us really want to reach the pinnacle in life? Because being stuck at the top sounds just as depressing as being stuck at the bottom. 

After all, those ‘ups’ in life — the successes, good times, privileges, simplicities, fortunes, peaks, ebbs, and waxes we experience — are meant to give us momentum, not make us complacent. 

Validate us, but in a humble manner. 

Set us free, but not into the wild. 

Loosen our minds, but not loosen our grip on who we are.

Yet most of us don’t see it that way – I tend to not see it that way sometimes. 

But I’m working on it. 

And I’m slowly realizing that if you can’t learn to appreciate EVERYTHING…

Then you’ll never learn how to appreciate ANYTHING. 

Because, let’s be honest, life wouldn’t be life without its ‘ups’ and ‘downs.’