This was a post for someone else on a different website I was on who is struggling and having a difficult life. I posted this for them but I want you all to read it as well. Many of the things I said to this person were lessons you all taught me:

There's a few things I've come to accept about life:

#1 - it's never, ever fair. I lost my father last summer to cancer, he worked at the post office for 45 years and was forced to retire because of it. He didn't get to enjoy his retirement because he was in and out of the hospital, and the doctors made the stupid mistake to 'wait and see if the chemotherapy was doing anything', which just made the cancer get worse. We lost him and it felt like the world was ending, but here I am, still living, still struggling to obtain my dreams. I refuse to give up because it was my dad's dream to have three successful boys, and I can't let him down.

#2 - Everyone suffers. This is a Buddhist teaching that really opened my eyes. You sometimes will believe that everyone else's lives are perfect while you are miserable, but you'll come to discover that everyone goes through hardships. The best way to realize this is to consider a traffic jam. You're suffering by being stuck in the middle of it and having the fears of not being able to get where you were going on time, but when you realize that everyone around you is going through the exact same thing, you'll understand people a little better. Sometimes, people will make fun of you because they're really jealous of you or actually respect you. And sometimes the best way to deal with someone like that is to laugh with them, even if they're insulting you. It's a good way to break the ice, and you'll learn not to get angry at the little things.

#3 - The media makes everything seem so horrible, but that's only because they think that we as human beings are uninterested in hearing about the good things in life.