The world is full of people who see their own troubles in one way or the other. I see it more clearly in Trinidad and Tobago now, after years of drawing breath, but I’ve always seen it.

I’ve seen that listless look, the empty eyes, when people ask, “What can you do?” I’ve done it myself a few times when things were going in ways I did not expect or like – in ways I did not plan for, in ways that worked against my own goals.

The world is not always how we are told it would be. It’s almost never the way that we wished it would be. Broken dreams are made of these things.

And yet, rather than focusing on what we cannot do, we should focus on the things that we can do.

When you lose your job, you find another way to pay the bills.
When you lose someone you love, you find another way to exist.

You move on. The first part of moving on is accepting what has happened, the second part is assessing the situation, and the last part is to dare to keep pushing forward somehow.

Never ask, “What can you do?”

Always ask, “What can I do?”

That’s what you can do.

You’ll live a better life, and the world will be a better place for it.