Life Is Not Easy!

Not since 1972, when astronauts photographed Earth suspended against the infinite void, has there been such acute global awareness that we are struggling. That we are fragile. That we are in trouble.

Given this shared struggle, how should we approach it? Life in its singular march forward, demands that we strive for what we need; that we know we will suffer setbacks; that we do not collapse under pressure; and that we recognise not all problems are external but can arise from our own thinking. This is not about pretending that real oppression or structural barriers do not exist. It is about finding what power we possess within whatever circumstances we face.

What’s The Problem?

Let me name the chaos once, clearly, before we move on to what matters more: how we handle it.

Global issues tend to become intensely personal. We are infected with viruses. We lose our jobs. We suffer at the hands of inept governments and crime. Natural and human-induced catastrophes strike. We face unwelcome change and forced displacement. Criminals and corrupt systems inflict injury and loss. Most recently, geopolitical vandals with ballistic egos have bombed properties, possessions, and persons. And then all of this is exacerbated by the rollercoaster rides of interpersonal relations with colleagues, neighbours, family, and friends.

News outlets constantly expose us to media gloom-feeds and dread-scrolls parading doom and death. No wonder we think all we can do is to complain—loudly. Or quietly endure our calamities, conditions, and circumstances, sinking into the maelstrom. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by circumstances and people around us and give in to sanity-stealing tough times.

If only we knew the problem isn't the struggle itself. It's how we frame it.

Why Are We Having a Rough Time?

Because life is not a goal. Life is a struggle. And unless we start seeing it that way, our problems may remain confusing or unresolved hurdles. Barriers can be real and brutal, and we can't always climb out alone. We struggle to find and apply our strength, and when we do, we use it to escape.

Perhaps it's time to interrogate our assumptions about what life should be, as most of us don't. We keep expecting life to be something other than a struggle.

For most of my life, I was living proof of this misunderstanding. I repeatedly yielded to failure and disappointment and chastised myself for it. I battled to stand in, or against, the storm fronts of my inner life. Looking for somebody or something to blame. Creeping into the corner of self-pity and isolation. Living on the breadline of despair. I did not think about my abilities. It never occurred to me I could step out and step up — even if stepping up meant just taking one deep breath while all I could do is take shallow gasps to survive. I needed to breathe. I wanted to live. I wanted to rewrite the script of my life.

Why Should We Respond?

Because silence has a cost. Not responding doesn't preserve us. It slowly erodes who we are.

Yes, systemic inequalities and structural oppression, which could make responding near impossible, abound. But there is a cost to hiding, blaming, shrinking, or waiting for someone else to change things. Each time we retreat, we surrender a little more of our agency to shame, to helplessness, and to the belief that we don’t matter.

Agency is not bravado. It is not denial. It is not pretending that everything is fine. It might be seeking help when you need it. It might be standing with others when you can't stand alone. Agency is a daily decision not to vanish but to participate in one's own becoming, whatever form that takes. And sometimes, ironically, it is humiliation—the most disliked experience—that forces us to make this choice.

Humiliation is a public stripping of dignity. It tells you that you are small, laughable, undeserving. It brands you with powerlessness. It is never kind and rarely just. Strangely, it can compel us to find something stronger and deeper in ourselves or in our community than merely seeking approval, applause, or revenge.

I know this terrain intimately.

I grew up as the youngest of four sisters, being quiet, introverted, and easy to overlook. I learned early how to make myself small. Sibling rivalry left its bruises, but worse was the silence I wrapped myself in to avoid conflict, to avoid notice. I hid from people. And they let me. Maybe because I literally and socially grew up on the wrong side of town, I became a shadow in rooms where others glowed. I was ashamed of how little I had, and of how little I felt I was.

Humiliation soaked into me. Not through one act of cruelty, but through the quiet erosion of being unseen, unheard, unremarkable.

Until one day, in Grade 6, a teacher read my essay aloud to the class. For the first time, I felt something shift. Somebody noticed me. Recognised. Lifted.

But recognition is double-edged. As she praised me, my classmates turned. They turned not with admiration, but with the skewed glances reserved for the strange ones. The asocial ones. The ones who didn’t quite fit.

I carried both moments for much of my young adulthood: the rising and the recoil. The taste of being noticed. The sting of not belonging. Those experiences shaped me, but they no longer define me.

I'm not that shy, invisible girl anymore. Life, and its many hammers, forged me into someone who can stand, speak, and move forward. I still carry a neurodivergent edge that makes some connections harder. But I’ve learned to stand. To speak. To persist.

And now, when I see others being slapped around by circumstances, scorn, or shame, I wish they could rise and keep rising.

That’s what Despite the Hammers is for. Whether you live in a high-rise or a hut, speak English fluently or haltingly, whether you’ve known war, wealth, worry—or all three—this space is for you. Not because I have all the answers. I don’t. Not to avoid the blows. But to learn how to take them. Alone when we must, together when we can. To rise anyway. And maybe, just maybe, to push back with enough force to change what needs changing.

The hammers haven't stopped. They won't. But I've learned to meet them differently. This is Part 1 of a two-part post. And if this post resonates with you—if you're tired of being invisible, overwhelmed, or waiting for permission to matter—then stay with me. In Part 2, I discuss being fine with not being fine, and being comfortable being uncomfortable despite the hammers, and until we have grappling hooks to grab hold of hope.

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