Last November was rough. Like, genuinely one of the hardest periods I’ve been through in a while.
The government shutdown hit the stock market hard, and I lost a lot of money. Not a little. A lot. And I’m not going to sugarcoat it — I was devastated. I lost all motivation. I didn’t want to do anything. I’d just sit there feeling stuck, replaying everything in my head, thinking about what I should’ve done differently. It was exhausting.
The worst part wasn’t even the money honestly. It was the feeling that no matter how much effort you put in, sometimes it just doesn’t matter. That got to me more than anything. I started questioning a lot of things about myself.
I really don’t think I would’ve pulled through the way I did without my girlfriend.
She didn’t try to fix it with the whole “it’ll be okay” speech. She actually listened. She saw how low I was and she didn’t brush it off. She helped me out financially a little, which already took some pressure off, but it was more than that. She just stayed. Every day she’d check in, remind me that this wasn’t the end, and slowly I started believing it again.
There’s something about having someone who believes in you even when you don’t believe in yourself. I can’t really explain it but it just makes you want to get back up.
I’m writing this because I think a lot of people feel like motivation is something you’re supposed to find on your own. And maybe sometimes you do. But sometimes you just need one person in your corner who refuses to let you give up. For me, that person was her.
I got through it. I’m still going. And honestly I think I came out of it a little stronger — not because I figured everything out, but because I had the right support when it actually mattered.
Aryan Shah 