Grateful ahead

New year. New beginning.

We wish each other another great year ahead, but can we still hold that mindset when things go sour?

Someone said it’s a privilege to feel frustrated by the life you once desperately wanted. And indeed, it is a privilege to stress about dreams that actually came true.

Then what?

Sometimes that truth, as beautiful as it sounds, still isn’t enough to carry you through the hard days. Especially when the storms feel so much bigger than the bravery it took to leap in the first place…

But even if you’re not happy where you are right now, don’t forget this:

You’re the one who brought yourself here.

With choices, effort, courage.

With past versions of you who kept going even when they had no idea how things would turn out.

And if that version of you could build this chapter, then you can build the next one too 💪

You have agency.

Work isn’t always about chasing more—not even about doing more or less. Often, it’s about learning how to make the life you’re already living more enjoyable and meaningful with the control you do have. Some people throw away broken ceramics and call it bad luck. Others turn them into art, like kintsugi.

Growth isn’t always clean or pretty. Sometimes it comes with stretch marks. And even when it doesn’t, it still asks you to “size up” eventually, because who you’re becoming needs bigger clothes than who you were before.

A purposeful life doesn’t equal comfort, either. Comfort may arrive as a result, but rarely as the means. There is no real fulfillment without discontentment, self-honesty, soul searching, and the discipline to build what you dream of.

And as you continue moving through life, shifts in relationships, identity, and environments are inevitable. Like a train, movement is what keeps it useful. It has to travel from station to station to welcome new passengers. Some stay longer than others, but not all. A train that refuses to move is a train out of service ☠️

So whenever you find yourself complaining, remember that frustration is often a signal that you’re already halfway there.

That’s where growth wants to happen. Possibilities are born exactly where things feel limiting. The direction to the solution often reveals itself right inside the problem.

The most important thing isn’t having a perfectly sketched-out plan—it’s believing in yourself strongly enough to trust that you can take yourself wherever you want to go next.

Save this for later when you need a gentle reminder:

You’ve brought yourself this far, so you can take yourself even further.

Honor how far you’ve come.

Decide what still feels true.

And trust yourself enough to keep writing whatever you want the next chapter to be.

Gratitude isn’t meant only for looking back at the end of the year.

You can feel grateful now—for what’s ahead.

✨

-----

📍 Etéreo, Playa del Carmen, Mexico

🎶 Credit: Original Audio