I say hello to a friend of mine.

“Hey,” he says back to me.

He’s a cheerful guy so I wonder why he is so low key this morning.

“Everything okay?” I ask.

“We all got problems, right?” he responds.

I nod my head in agreement.

“Some days it’s hard to hide the unhappy,” I say.

I have learned this.

No, not just that some days it’s hard to hide the unhappy.

I have learned that it’s okay to let people be unhappy. To let them have their moment rather than steal it with cheerleading.

I have learned that being too much of a cheerleader can actually make a person feel so much pressure that they spend more time fighting the unhappy. Instead, they should just ride it like a wave and wait until that sad ocean spits them out back onto the beach.

Then while they flounder with exhaustion, joy inevitably sneaks back in, hits them upside the head, and resuscitates them.

Some days it’s just too hard to hide the unhappy.

And that’s okay.

(Photo courtesy of Pexels)
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