Sometimes if you look and listen a little less carefully…passing headlights zooming by as you sit on a moving train look like stars falling while you lie down on the ground. Drawn, angry faces soften into sadness, and your distaste turns to sympathy. A walk across a dark pedestrian bridge becomes an adventure. Unkempt, lonely people prowling city sidewalks and walkways in the dead of night unearth your compassion, not fear.

People like to talk about facing the ‘realities of life’ as if there is only a single, objective interpretation as to what those realities may be, and the conclusion is always bleak. I agree that for the most part life is hardly dandy. We’ll always have issues and problems and things getting in the way of what we think will make us happy. And of course there are things in life you cannot and must never romanticise, like poverty and homelessness and the sadness of your parents.

But if there is anything fragments of Virginia Woolf’s writings have taught me recently, there is always room for your imagination to make things, especially the little things, better. You only need to let yourself find the door, and let your thoughts translate every moment into something that is acceptable and beautiful. If that doesn’t work, read. Write. Sing. Get lost and find meaning in these things. It works, most of the time. You cannot find peace by avoiding life.