Colour

My spectacles broke today.

On the bus, I just took off my spectacles with my right hand, and its right leg cracked audibly. I looked at the thin frame in my hand, wiggled it a little, and saw the entire right leg pull away from the rest of the frame.
Eventually I resorted to wearing my spectacles as per normal, but anyone who actually bothered to look would see that a side was missing and oddly truncated. Also, it looked a little odd.

In the end, at night, I took off my spectacles and walked. The world greeted me as an odd wall of colour, my eyes failing to distinguish any specific features, but just the generals. It was strangely liberating, yet in the end I had to put the remains of my spectacles back on for necessity's sake.

---

At the same time, in a completely different context, high hopes and egos of some were perhaps snapped like the frail frame of my spectacles. I don't know, was that the case?

All I have to say is - there is no shame in that.
It's how you deal with it that matters, hm.
Anyone can sit down and whine, but if you guys can keep a cool head and continue on, you will rise high.
And you are not alone - generations of people before you (and definitely after you) have and will experience the same things, and have fallen at some point in time. Yet history shows that those who rallied together, got back on their feet, those are the people that rose higher above their opponents in the end.

From what I've heard from the others, you guys have a problem in this department. "Keep a cool head" - how do you do that? Simple: you don't. You rely on other people, work together, rally each other, encourage each other - A human is a social creature, after all, whether you like it or not. And of course, you should recognize that this is important, and actually strive towards it, else the cesspool of self-pity awaits.

And as you know, you guys are pretty good too. I won't need to say more, but I think you guys know that yourself, and we've all told you so. We're not telling you this for politically-correctness' sake - you should know best of all people - so take that to heart.

It's more than just hard work, sweat and tears - it's the enjoyment, the experience, the simple fun you have, not just with what you do but with the people you're with.

We all have gone through this before, but rebound instead of crashing, higher and higher and higher.

It is not the war, but merely a battle, an opening note in the epic orchestra arrangement of this experience.
Charge!
And it's not over yet - not by a long shot.
Enjoy.