Ananda

“It gets better.”

That’s what people always say. They say it to comfort you, and probably themselves. I’ve said it more times than I can count. But I don’t think I’ve ever believed it. How could I? No one can predict the future.

But we fool ourselves that we can—maybe we know someone who’s been in a situation kind of like the one we’re confronted by, or maybe we ourselves have been through something similar, but “similar” is not “the same.” “You have never been me,” I want to tell people who use this hackneyed phrase on me, “and you’re definitely not me at this moment, so how can you know how anything is going to turn out for me?”

I even tell this lie to myself, when I’m swimming in some kind of negative emotion. But I usually catch myself using it to try to buoy others up when they’re drowning. Because, dishonest though it might be, what else is there to say when we are desperate to offer (and sometimes receive) some measure of peace and reassurance, however fleeting?

The thing is, telling someone that their specific circumstance will “get better” in some indefinite future belittles what they’re going through at the moment. We are all suffering in some way, and no one really has the right to tell you that your suffering is temporary or insignificant in the grand scheme of things. They don’t know what you’re feeling. Only you do.

I don’t know what you are going through. Maybe you’re in heaven or maybe you’re in hell. Maybe, if I asked you, you’d say you were happy—but I wouldn’t know if you had your fingers crossed behind your back. I wouldn’t know if your smile was real, or what the future holds for you. I certainly wouldn’t know if “it” were going to “get better” for you. I hope I wouldn’t tell you that it was. But I can’t guarantee it. ♦