How can we keep going when our creativity feels out of reach? During those moments—days, months, even entire years—when the creative well feels dry, when the spark dims, and the path ahead seems obscured by shadows. When the grand visions we once held with such fervor begin to feel like distant echoes, tempting us to just… stop. It’s in these moments of doubt that the true mettle of our spirit is tested. The answer isn’t to retreat, but to find that quiet, unwavering resolve to keep going.
Tudo vale a pena se a alma não é pequena.
(Everything is worthwhile if the soul is not small.)
“Mar Português,” in Mensagem (1934)
Your Soul is Not Small
There are days when life feels like a hallway of closed doors. When the plans we made with big eyes and willing hearts now seem like foolish pursuits.
We sit before the screen or the blank page, and our burning dreams and desires have become thin, fleeting, impossible to hold. When it feels foolish to keep going, this is a call to arms for our souls.
Pessoa’s line, “Tudo vale a pena se a alma não é pequena (Everything is worthwhile if the soul is not small),” is a clarion call to expand our spirit. To stretch beyond the limits of what feels possible, to keep believing, especially when doing so feels unwise, reckless.
In his poem, Mar Português, Pessoa reflects on the great voyages of discovery, on the sacrifices and courage of sailors who crossed the unknown seas. The line serves as both tribute and reminder that any undertaking demanding courage and vision (whether sailing beyond the map or daring to create something new) is worth the pain, as long as the soul remains vast enough to contain both the struggle and the dream.
We started creating, building, and dreaming because something inside us refused to settle.
That part of us is still there.
It may be dormant now, or wrapped in fatigue, but it has not left. The world wears down our edges, but those edges can also soften into something wiser, more grounded, more open to wonder.
When you feel hopeless, do not try to escape it. Let it sit beside you. Pour it a cup of coffee. Ask what it is trying to teach you about patience, about faith, about the long rhythm of becoming.
Persistence Is Its Own Form of Love
Creation is not a straight path. It is a winding, aching, luminous road that often disappears under our feet just when we think we’ve found our stride.
And yet, if the soul is not small, we keep going.
Even when the momentum falters and the grand gesture feels impossible, it’s the quiet, daily commitment—the decision to simply show up, take one more small step, and keep going—that nurtures the flame back to life. It’s in these small acts of faith that our soul truly expands.
We pick up the brush, the pen, the phone, the tool. We show up again because something inside us knows our work is a conversation with life itself. It is our way of saying, “I am still here. I am still trying to make something beautiful out of this breath, this hour, this chance.”
Joy will return if you continue to show up.
It will sneak up on us in the middle of our work. We will find ourselves smiling at a color, a word, a sound—and realize that our soul, though perhaps a bit battered at times, has never been small.
Everything is worthwhile if the soul is not small.
Let’s give our lives and work another heartbeat. Persistence is its own form of love. Keep going.
