When you set off on your journey, there is much cheering and celebration, for everyone walks with you for a while, and you have all their strength with you.

But the journey gets lonelier with each step, and each footfall brings you closer to despair, and the cloak of loneliness and weariness weighs heavily around your shoulders.

The cold bites in the darkness of night, the bitter rain stings like never before.

And all you think of is how much worse does it get? And when does the dawn, bright with promise and relief, come?

I will not lie, lest you delude yourself. It gets worse. Much worse. And the dawn is yet far. But there is no turning back.

You know the purpose of your journey, you know the reward you seek. Will you return to your old comfortable self? Or will you seek your destiny, no matter what?

So stand.

Through the darkness, through the pain, stand.

Now, more than ever, stand.

All great and beautiful work has come of first gazing without shrinking into the darkness.
– John Ruskin