When Giving Up Feels Easier: How to find the hope

Some days, I want to give up — not on life, but on effort itself. The day-to-day feels so heavy, it’s like my body is filled with lead, weighing down every move. Hope feels thick, useless, impossible. On those days, I feel like Eeyore: carrying a constant raincloud only I can see. I just feel de-feated.

I remember a stretch of my life when wallowing became my default setting. Every morning, I’d muster all the strength I had to drag myself to work. I’d survive the eight-hour day, then collapse onto the couch, glued to reruns of early 2000s sitcoms. The TV buzzed in the background like a comfort blanket, numbing the panic I didn’t want to face.

I’d scroll endlessly on my phone, watching the whole world move forward without me. My excuse was always the same: I’m just trying to survive the day.

And if I’m honest, sometimes it still feels that way. Some days, my biggest achievement is simply getting outside and walking around the block.

It’s easy to give up. It’s easy to drift, to settle into a life that feels safe but hollow — where each day blurs into the next, without meaning, without momentum.

Life is About the Choices

But here’s the turning point no one talks about: Choosing to live the life you want isn’t a one-time decision. It’s not a cinematic makeover moment where everything clicks into place. It’s inch-by-inch. Agonizingly slow. Deeply personal.

Real change doesn’t happen like in the movies — one pair of contact lenses and suddenly you’re popular and your problems go away. Real change is messy. Hard. Exhausting. The hard goals, the ones that matter, take work.

Some days, progress looks like drafting a few sentences. Some days, it’s writing for nine straight hours because you’re finally on a roll. And some days, it’s just deciding — fiercely, stubbornly — not to give up, even when every part of you wants to.

I don’t write because I want to become “Insta-famous.” I write because it gives me purpose. It helps me think things through, fight things through. It gives me something to stand for when it feels easier to stay sitting down. My life is better with writing than without.

How You Live Is Your Choice

Living the life you want doesn’t mean dazzling the world with spectacular wins every day. It simply means doing something.

It means asking yourself — gently, honestly:
Is this the life I want to live?
And if the answer is no, it means daring to ask the even harder question:
What am I willing to change, inch by inch, to get there?

I still have my wallow days. I still have days when the weight feels heavier than my will.

But now, I also have something else: Proof.
Tiny, stubborn victories that stack up like stepping stones. Proof that even if I move slowly, even if I stumble, even if I spend an hour crying on the floor — I’m still moving. It takes rain to see the rainbow.

And that’s what real progress looks like:
Not a straight line.
Not a perfect plan.
But a messy, imperfect, inch-by-inch crawl toward something better.

So if you’re stuck, if you’re tired, if you want to give up — you’re not broken.
You’re not behind.
You’re just human.

You don’t have to sprint.
You don’t have to soar.

You just have to keep inching forward.

And sometimes, that’s more than enough.