Are You Living In Full-Color or Black And White?

Every once in a while, we all have days where we do not feel like getting out of bed.

It feels like a vacuum has just sucked out all of our energy and willpower to do anything.

The world is drained of color, we’re living in black and white.

We lie in bed and stare at the ceiling, wondering what is wrong with us, desperately trying to figure out why we feel this way.

Time slows down to a crawl and we can feel every agonizing second slowly seeping our life force away.

Hours go by like this.

We feel terrible so we can’t get out of bed; we can’t get out of bed so we feel terrible.

It’s a vicious cycle.

I believe that it is in our darkest moments, when we are stuck at the bottom of the well, swallowed in a pit of despair, that we can figure out the type of person we truly are.

We can find who we truly are in these situations because it is in these situations that we make a choice—and free will is the master of the universe.

We can choose to continue to lie there and feel sorry for ourselves.

Or we can choose to get up and do something about it.

It’s not going to be easy, trust me I know.

I have had many days in my life when I did not want to get out of bed, where I could not bear the thought of going through another day—times when I was seriously depressed.

There were times when it felt like the entire world had fallen apart and had come crashing down on top of my chest.

But then I chose to take one, small, step forward.

I did this because I am strong.

I did this because the thought of dying in bed was much scarier to me than the darkness that was constantly swirling around me.

I took a step forward and a crazy thing happened.

All of those doubts, all of those fears, and all of those what-ifs that shackled me to lethargy and depression started falling off.

It was by finally taking one step forward that I realized that no matter how bad things get right now, the sun will always rise again tomorrow.

Life is struggle. Life is pain. Life is beauty. Life is happiness.

Everything in life must be experienced to the fullest extent.

Without the lows you can never experience the highs, without hate you can never experience love, without darkness you cannot experience light.

It may sound like I am speaking in parables right now but I am telling you a legitimate truth about life.

Think about a blind man for a moment.

Someone that was born blind, they have never seen anything in their entire life.

Now try to describe what the color blue looks like to that person.

Try and try and you will fail.

Do you know why?

Trying to explain something that someone has never experienced is impossible.

Luckily, this is where metaphors and similes come in.

The point of these literary devices is to help you understand something that you have never experienced before through the use of things that you have experienced before.

It’s about changing the perspective so that people who have never experienced it may understand it in their terms.

If you try to describe to a blind man what the color blue looks like you will fail.

It is impossible for a blind man to understand what the color blue looks like because he has never seen anything in his life and he never will see anything in his life.

However, if you describe to a blind man what the color blue FEELS like—you have just opened the doors to another reality.

What does the color blue feel like?

Blue feels like raindrops sliding down a glass window.

Blue feels like your body submerged in a cold pool of water.

Blue feels like a heavy heart that wants to fall out of your chest.

What does the color blue sound like?

The color blue sounds like “Kind of Blue” by Miles Davis.

By changing your perspective, you can teach a blind man what colors are.

By changing your perspective, you can stop thinking about what you are told and start feeling what you know.

By changing your perspective, you get to choose how you see the world.

At the end of the day, how we choose to see the world is all that we really have.

We owe it to ourselves to paint the most vivid and true picture of how things really are for ourselves, and our surroundings.

This is how we learn who we really are.

This is how we gather deeper knowledge and self-awareness about our lives.

What is it that you choose to see?

What is it that you choose to feel?

How do you choose to perceive the world and your place in it?

Are you living in black and white or are you living in full color?

You tell me.