Kahlil Gibran writes the most beautiful words. I was given him on a tiny piece of folded up paper on my travels, and I now keep it folded up inside my locket which hangs around my neck close to my heart. I remind myself of his words in times of need. When your heart gets broken. Or, when bleary eyed in the morning and that box of cereal falls and spills out all over the kitchen floor, scattering in a hundred million directions when you’re already running late. Sometimes they are both the same. When I think that I am having a rubbish week I remind myself that life isn’t rubbish at all. It is just life being life, playing out exactly how it is supposed to be. Sweep up the mess and carry on.
Kahlil Gibran writes:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that hold your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or sorrow rise or fall.
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