But We Must Laugh Hard

In our daily lives, whether it is at work or in our personal lives we tend to encounter different people and we form many relationships. Some may be pleasant but not all are.

Untold Sides
4 min readSep 16, 2024

Struggle is the nature of human existence. How one struggles differ from another. Having met the dangers of gratifications, one struggles to end the mundane struggle.

Wisdom is to guard the door to the heart.

Many years back, I received a note titled “letting emotions slip”; it is about the importance of emptying stored emotions; negative ones to be precise. In our daily lives, whether it is at work or in our personal lives we tend to encounter different people and we form many relationships. Some may be pleasant but not all are. As a result, we accumulate a lot of stored emotions and sometimes we lose clarity over our situations which in turn affect the decisions we take. But our lives does not end with just problem solving. Neither is it all about problem solving. Or is it?

Struggle isn’t just my reality — it’s the very essence of human existence.

Image by Victoria from Pixabay

No..we must continue and more importantly, as we do that, we must be able to laugh hard. We should consider our lives as an experiment..we must continue to reform and transform our understandings until we attain realisation that is not conventional.

Every relationship serves a purpose. Every acquaintance has its reason and every stage of our lives we are bound to come across new experiences. It is only when one is moving on in life with past baggage that one is constantly in a channel that is determined and affected by the emotional baggage that one carries.

But how can one hope to move forward without this emotional baggage? It is not as simple as dropping the bag and make a decision to move on. If only it were that straight forward. I want to move on, don’t I? But I do not operate from a switch. Over the years, I may have been conditioned to live my life mechanically and to take this trip now would require that I unlearn all that I have come to call “me”.

I can perhaps do that on an outer level but what about the baggage that I accumulated internally? I have but to look back and realise first that there is in fact a baggage. What baggage is this? How does one find this baggage?

This requires courage and compassion with oneself to prepare oneself to start the trip into the tunnel — the dark tunnel that has been covered with layers and layers of emotions.

In my daily lives I encounter many activities and without skilful means, I may add on fresh layers of pain..which further narrows the path of the tunnel. And as I work to dig out the old layers of emotions, new layers were added. Is this only due to lack of skilful means?

Maybe… but maybe not.

Every new experience is an opportunity to uncover an old wound. The catch is each of these new experience may also create a new wound. But this wound is needed because it offers a fresh perspective that might just lead you to something deeper. What has happened in the past may very well taught me a precious lesson. But it is a stark message — because time lost can never be regained. I cannot convince myself that yes, they were valuable lessons and having learnt them I move forward and consider them lessons learnt. But what is still there, is a lingering reminder so subtle that although I think I have moved on, I was just given a longer thread to walk farther before being pulled back.

Yes, I have learnt from my past and I think I can skilfully focus ahead. But with all those tiny threads — it is only a matter of time when I will be pulled, again. Yes I can be very focused at work and other things — it will create an illusion that I have moved forward and not look back. … only for so long.

Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay

So, it seems the only way is to dive in. Further and further into layers and layers of emotions to see where the gap is. I am almost sure that there is a gap of emptiness. Or is it a gap of void and peace?

But before I find this gap I also know that I am bound to find many many holes that have yet to be filled. Along the way, I may end up creating more holes. At times, I may be drained. I can see that there is no turning back.

Sometimes I may feel lost and I wish to give up. Sometimes I want to end it all but I am sure I do not have that kind of courage to. I can convince myself I am not selfish, I am not weak and I can do it. So, I have to move on. But this is the journey into the gap… the journey that is full of pain and tears until as and when I see that my heart is completely wounded and broken.

And then I move on… but until I reach the core, I can expect that again I may wake up with a heavy heart, again I may not be skilful. But I am hopeful. Hopeful that one day I will reach the destination. I hope…. and then, I can laugh hard.

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Untold Sides
Untold Sides

Written by Untold Sides

I write about healing + parenting + self development + growth, and occasionally tech.