Saw this today and it really hit me.
Everyone’s so quick to label others based on where they are right now—struggling, failing, lost.
But time changes everything. Growth isn’t instant.
Coal doesn’t stay coal forever… and neither do people.
Maybe we should stop judging and start giving people space to become who they’re meant to be.
I’ve been dwelling on a mistake I made earlier this week, and I stumbled across this quote by A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. It’s a simple reminder, but sometimes we need to hear it from someone else: You aren't defined by yesterday’s failures. Let’s make today better.
We spend 90% of our energy looking at the person next to us.
We copy their "study habits."
We copy their "career path."
We copy their "lifestyle."
Then we wonder why we feel like we’re failing. The truth is, you can’t get the right answer if you’re looking at the wrong questions. Their "Question Paper" is written for their strengths, their family background, and their unique struggles.
Your paper is yours alone. The only way to "pass" is to stop looking around the room and start focusing on your own desk.
It’s easy to feel like the current struggle is the whole story, but it’s just a section of the book. Don't let a bad chapter convince you that the story is over. Keep going.
All your days are filled with long suffering and painful toil. What do you work for? What do you suffer for? When you work, you receive your payment only to spend it on food that spoils and vanities that corrupt your soul. You work so hard. Only to die in the end. And then what becomes of your riches? What becomes of all your toil under the sun? Nothing. Eventually, it will fade and return to nothingness.
So again I ask you, what do you work for? What do you live your life for?
Rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord our God. Worship him and his blessing will be on your food and water. Serve him and give yourself fully to his work because your labor in him is not in vain. Your hard-work in him will achieve eternal glory.
Verses for you, my dearest brothers and sisters:
Vanity[a] of vanities, says the Preacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
3
What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?
4
A generation goes, and a generation comes,
Ecclesiastes 1:2-4
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
1 Corinthians 15:58
For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
Matthew 16:26
Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit He taketh away; and every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
John 15:2
For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
Romans 8:18
Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you”
Hebrews 13:5
And He said unto them, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.
Luke 12:15
Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth: fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness which is idolatry.
Colossians 3:5