Trust Life
We have no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world,
for it is not against us. If it has terrors, they are our terrors.
If it has abysses, these abysses belong to us. If there are dangers,
we must try to love them, and only if we could arrange our lives
in accordance with the principle that tells us that we must
always trust the difficult, then what appears to us to be alien
will become our most intimate and trusted experience.
How could we forget those ancient myths that stand
at the beginning of all races - the myths about dragons
that at the last moment are transformed into princesses.
Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are only princesses
waiting for us to act, just once, with beauty and courage.
Perhaps everything that frightens us is,
in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.
So you must not be frightened if a sadness rises before you
larger than any you’ve ever seen, if an anxiety like light and
cloud shadows moves over your hands and everything you do.
You must realize that something has happened to you.
Life has not forgotten you; it holds you in its hands and
will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life
any uneasiness, any miseries, or any depressions?
For after all, you do not know what work these conditions
are doing inside you.
~ Rainer Marie Rilke