Life is often hard to understand. It’s the biggest struggle we’ll ever face. We all go through a time where we doubt and wonder what we are going to do, to be.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wondered these same things himself, and penned a poem as a guide to help us find our way. He called it “A Psalm of Life.”

In the third stanza, he writes: “Not enjoyment, and not sorrow/is our destined end or way.” Our life isn’t meant to end in pain. That doesn’t mean we won’t have troubles, but that’s not the point of life. The point of life is to “But to act, that each to-morrow/ Find us farther than to-day.” We are to live in hope that tomorrow will be better than today; that even in hard times, our lives should get continually better.

“Art is long and Time is fleeting.” Time is ticking by, flying by, and our lives are going with it. We can’t live forever. We create “art” in our lives. This “art,” no matter how beautiful, will carry on our legacies.

“And departing leave behind us/ Footprints on the sands of time; / Footprints, that perhaps another,/ Sailing o’er life’s solemn main/ A forlorn and shipwrecked brother/ seeing, shall take heart again.” The footprints we leave behind on the “sands of time” guide and direct those who follow us. What this basically means is to “lead by example.” We are all a role model to someone, and our actions will ultimately guide someone else. It’s up to us to choose where they will end up.

Life is always going to be hard. There will be times when we think it can’t possibly get any worse and it does. But if we remember that we were made for a purpose other than the grave and always do the next best thing, our lives will not be wasted.