When the leaves fall and the sky starts crying many of us just want to hide and cry as well. Autumn is known for causing depression. But it is even worse, when it coincides with us failing to keep moving towards our vision. Because then all we can do is crumble. And in a matter of days we are back to the very dark places we thought we had left behind for good.

We don’t talk about it, because we are ashamed of ourselves, for not keeping up the good work. For breaking the promises to ourselves. Again. We keep telling the people around us, we are fine, because we do not feel entitled to feel bad. And with us not telling how we actually are, we detach from the people around us. And just like that our entire lives become empty and cold.

We find ourselves having a tinnitus again. Find our feet tickling until we loose all feeling in them. And then we may realize that we have been not taking our medication properly for weeks. Our sleep starts being interrupted. Dreams haunting us. We keep being tired, even though we know we are getting enough sleep.

And we blame ourselves for all of it. We start hating ourselves for letting it all slide. We try to get our lives back on track. Try to focus on our visions. Try to do that homework that we have been putting off. Try to get out of bed. But nothing can stop the sadness inside us. And we know one thing: Even though we try. Even though we try to push away all the negativity, the moment one single thing goes wrong, we will fall. We are fine. For now. But there is nothing we can do to stop the sadness. To stop the cold. To stop the loneliness.

But even though we know we will fall at some point. We keep fighting. Some of us do for the ones close to us. Some do, because they do not want to admit, that they have issues, that they need to address. And some just don’t see the point. I tried to deal with it. I tried to make it go away for good. I know it won’t.

Sometimes life is not about making everything perfect. Sometimes life is about making it through. Sometimes it is about keeping the darkness at bay rather than destroying it. It cannot be destroyed. It will not go away. It will linger beneath the surface and break through at some point. All I want to do, is to make sure it doesn’t destroy me when that point comes. And at some point that has to be good enough.

But how can we make it through? It is a matter of balance in attitude and mindset. For one we have to dump perfectionism. And on the other hand we cannot give up. We need to get stuff done. We have to keep making progress.

We have to get rid of perfectionism, because if we don’t we will never be happy with our progress. And we will keep beating ourselves up.

And we need to figure out what is the most important thing to do. We need to not get overwhelmed. What we do does not have to be perfect, it does not have to be a huge task. But it has to be something. This is what makes sure, that once we feel like working towards our visions again, we don’t give up immediately because the things we did not do pilled up.

Getting motivated may be difficult, but we can, by remembering the recent things that we are pleased with or proud of. And then it is just one step at a time. Living every day a little better than the last one.