The other day, I read a quote that really transformed my outlook on life; one of those mic-drop kinds of mental realizations, you know? The quote said, "Stars can't shine without darkness." Now, this may seem simple or obvious to you, but to me, it clarified so much.

Oftentimes in our lives we feel defeated by hardships, we feel sorry for ourselves, and we wonder why me? Without ever realizing how necessary these difficult times are for our growth, overwhelming stress and confusion fill our mind.

These emotions are natural, but after reading this quote, it became clear to me that hardships should be looked at differently. After feeling the natural responses of anxiety and sadness when we get hit with bad news, we should then take a step back and look at how this difficult time might serve a greater purpose in our life. Think about it for a second. How would we be able to feel the warmth and comfort of happiness without feeling the harsh, loneliness of sadness?

It may seem unnatural to think positively about things going wrong or having to skew from a well-drawn out plan, but these turns are what make up the beautiful puzzle that is life. I can attest to this because it happened to me just a couple weeks ago.

As my junior year of college comes to a close, the internship stress floods in. Having found and applied to an internship I loved early on in the year and then putting all my efforts towards securing this position, I never thought that I would be caught up in the scramble to find something to do over the summer. Well, after months of waiting I received an email with a subject line that you never want to see, "Thank you for your interest." Yikes.

As you can probably imagine, I was stressed and confused, but most of all sad. But despite all of my whirling emotions, I decided in that moment of defeat that I would handle this hardship differently. I started by deciding to think about all the reasons why I may not have been meant to get this internship and that maybe there was something better.

Don't get me wrong, it was hard to look for positives while feeling like a failure, but it was worth it. After changing my mindset, disappointment suddenly turned to wonder; what else was out there for me?

This experience taught me that sometimes you can put your all into something and come up short, and that is okay! Somehow, after getting rejected from my dream job, I was still breathing, contrary to what I had expected would happen. So, I serve as living proof to all of you that you cannot only survive, but excel through failure because the fact of the matter is that everything happens for a reason.

Overcoming hardship is what allows us to shine in our lives, it allows us to excel, grow and learn. After all, we can't flourish without hardships, and stars can't shine without darkness.