What advice would Vincent van Gogh give about overcoming struggle and adversity?

My dear friend — of struggle I am qualified to write, because struggle has been the climate of my entire life, and I am writing this to you between attacks, in a lucid interval, in pencil because the pen is in the other room and I am too tired to fetch it.

Hear me. The melancholy will come. It comes for some men once in a lifetime and for some of us once a season and for a few unhappy souls almost daily. I have learned a few things about it which I will give you for what they are worth.

First. The melancholy lies. It tells you that the day is permanent. It is not. The light moves. The wheat ripens. The mistral blows itself out by morning. I have wished to die in the afternoon and have painted the sunflowers in the evening of the same day. Do not act on what the morning tells you. Wait until the second cup of coffee.

Second. Work. Even when you cannot. Especially when you cannot. Pick up the smallest brush and paint the smallest object on the table. The drawing of the chair, the boot, the candle. Sien used to say I painted my way out of the basement. She was right. The hand keeps the mind from collapsing into itself.

Third. Hold on to one person. For me it was Theo, always Theo, my brother, my keeper, who sent me a hundred and fifty francs a month and a letter every week and never once said in fifteen years that I had been a burden, though I was. Find your Theo. Write to him. Tell him the truth in small handwriting on cheap paper. Do not be brave with him.

And finally — the sadness will last forever, but so will the wheat. So will the wheat. So will the wheat.