Yesterday was the last lesson for one of my college-bound students. This particular student happens to be one that I think will keep singing, as he seems to really enjoy it. Anyway, I gave him a piece of advice that I think bears repeating:

Life is crappy. Always.

I think that's a useful lesson to learn, and I'm sure I've addressed it before, in many ways. Life will never get perfect. There are moments when it seems like there aren't any problems and it'll be all smooth sailing from there on out.

Yeah, no.

That's when the car breaks down or your dog dies or you get a horrible bout of Norovirus that leads to a situation in which your voice teacher sees your naked butt while a tiny little Indian doctor who speaks very little English is giving you a shot to stop the barfing.

Or maybe that's just me.

My student seemed to think this advice was depressing, but it's really intended to be the opposite. See, we're all in this together. Everyone is constantly getting smacked in the face by life, so we shouldn't ever feel that we're alone in the crappiness.

I thought, when I graduated, that life was going to get so much easier now that I had control of the reins. This was a stupid way to think. When you have no parents to blame everything on, life gets a lot more complicated because you realize a lot of that crap you blamed on your parents was actually your fault. Geez.

Anyway, maybe if we didn't always think it was us against everyone else, the bad things wouldn't seem so bad. We all have burdens to bear and poo to deal with, forms to fill out and jury duty, weight issues and skin issues, smell issues and (my favorite) germs. Lots and lots of them. Our species keeps on going, though, and we find new crap to contend with (because, really, most of the problems we have to deal with stem from the mistakes that we make).

So, love everyone else, and maybe they'll love you back. Put up with everyone else and maybe they'll put up with you. Because you truly are awful. Really.

Or maybe you're not. We'll see if anyone brings me a drink today, and maybe I'll change my mind about that.