Life is hard.

Life is stressful. Life is sad. Life is devastating.

Life does not care if you're young or old or rich or poor or educated or uneducated or refined or not.

Life will do what it wants.

It will pass so slowly that it is agonizing and so quickly that you will beg for time to freeze.

It will drag you around and beat you down and take advantage of you and leave you empty.

Life is overwhelming.

Life is beautiful.

Life brings new life which brings new life which brings new life.

With new life come new experiences and adventures and inspiration and vision.

Life is exciting.

Life is unpredictable.

Life is everywhere.

Sometimes there is so much of life in so many forms that you will have no idea what to do with it. You will not know what to make of the choices it gives you. You will not know what to do about the choices it makes for you. Some days, you won't know whether it's Monday or Friday. Some days will be the happiest days of your life and others will be days you'll wish you would have never seen. Some days you won't want any other life but yours, and others you'll take any other life that isn't yours. One day you'll laugh so hard your sides hurt, and another day you'll cry for so long that you won't be able to open your eyes. There will come a rare occasion that you won't know what to feel. Days pass where you feel everything at once.

It happens. It happens to everyone.

But, whether life is shaking you down or pulling you up, take a moment to tell yourself this one thing we all forget to tell ourselves:

B R E A T H E.

Deep breath in, deep breath out. Most of the time our lives pull us in so many different directions, have us feeling and doing so much, that we barely even have the chance to catch our breath before the next thing gets thrown at us.

It happens. It happens to everyone.

So please, for you and for me and for everyone else having a hard time or too much of a good time to enjoy the simple pleasure of a moment's breath, take a couple seconds for a good, deep one.

You deserve it.