“Nothing is permanent in this wicked world, not even our troubles.”
— Charlie Chaplin
From the film Monsieur Verdoux (1947). Chaplin said this after decades of losing his mother, surviving poverty, being exiled from Hollywood, and hunted by the FBI. He paid for these words. This is not comfort from someone who has it easy. This is the conclusion of a man who went through hell and came out the other side.
When I was five, my mother was taken to a psychiatric ward. My father drank and vanished. I ended up in a workhouse for the poor. Nothing to eat, nothing to hope for. I was on stage at nine because the alternative was starvation. And you know what? Every time I thought it couldn't get worse, it did. And then it passed. It always passed. If things are hard for you right now, hold onto this one thing: your problems are not forever. They will pass. And you will still be here.