How you see things is what is true for you. If you think you are going through a hard time, you certainly are. What constitutes a rough time is relative.
 
For some, it is a marvelous day when there is food on the table. For some, it’s a bad day when your tummy is full yet you wanted more from the day.  
 
Life may indeed sing its tune, yet your thoughts about life carry a certain tone. Better to go higher.
 
When you call something dreadful, you may be sure you dread it. And if, for instance, you lose your job, or a boyfriend says, “So long,” or you lose your wallet, you may be sure it’s a dreadful day.
 
What if, beloveds, you could take what comes with evenness? Then you would take what comes without upheaval.
 
It is not a funeral when you are laid off from your job. This isn’t what you desired, and you may feel as though the ground has been taken away from under you. Let’s say that next month you find another job, one you like better. Had you known, you could have had a vacation instead of a hard time.
 
Life can, indeed, give you detours. You do not know ahead of time where the detours may take you. If you are certain that detours take you to dismalness and greater misfortune, is it not also possible that you  can be certain that detours may take you to good fortune as well?
 
It seems natural to fear loss and dire events. Many-a-time, I have said there is no loss, yet you still believe fervently in owning and so fear losing.
 
It has long been said that attitude is everything. Certainly your thoughts and emotions rule your life and your conduct in it. Your life is not so much what happens in it as how you meet it. Why be devastated ahead of time? Why be devastated at all?
 
Somehow you have had a perception, and you think your perception is inviolable. You may perceive that, unless you have this or that the way you want it to be, you are worthless. If you lose your job, it’s a blow. Does it have to be? Why couldn’t losing your job be a step up, or even a blessing?
 
If you are homeless, it seems like the end of the world.  It feels like the end of the world, yet nothing is the end of the world. Death is not. I understand, and you understand that there are expectations you have, and without your expectations fulfilled, you are at a loss. If you say you have come down a peg or two, you certainly have. Your value is not dependent upon a job or a mansion or upon homelessness.
 
Fear is a bludgeon that you beat yourself up with. Fear can take you to the edge of a cliff even when there is a treasure beneath your feet. What you think rules your life does not have to be what rules your life.
 
If others can rise up and achieve beyond what the world establishes as against great odds, so can you. Nothing is written in stone. Well, nothing but that you and I are One, and One We Are. Whatever your misperceptions, there is no changing Our Oneness.
 
Let go of belief in dire. If anything is possible, anything is possible. What is there that you cannot be? You are limited by your thoughts, beloveds. Maybe you want to think different thoughts, thoughts filled with more goodness and mercy and downright joy.
 
Be happy today whether the sun is shining or there is a downpour. If you are feeling downtrodden, how happy you would be right now if you could go back to another time in your life even when you were displeased about a day that now you would bless. How happy you can be. Be it. Be happy now, and more happiness will run to you.