Life is hard.

Most of us have had to, do or will deal with both external, as well as internal problems that in the moment feel insurmountable.

Be it financial, professional or personal, the world we live in has a way of challenging us on the regular, and often in ways we don’t or didn’t see coming.

In those moments we can experience pain, sadness and doubt, while often feeling little of what often keeps us going — hope.

My guess is West Linn’s Tim Tawa felt all of those things over the past four years, and I’m also fairly certain it was all worth it when he stepped off the plane in Washington, D.C., this past Saturday.

Tawa — a former standout on the diamond and gridiron at West Linn High School where he broke nearly every passing record in the state — is a professional baseball player in the Arizona Diamondbacks organization and has been since graduating from Stanford in 2021.

He spent the bulk of that summer playing for the Hops, split time the following season between Hillsboro and Double-A Amarillo, and much of the last two seasons in Amarillo before playing the last month-and-a-half with Triple-A Reno where he started this season as well.

But after batting .391 with three homers and 12 RBI over his first six games with the Aces, and in the wake of the Diamondbacks’ Ketel Marte’s hamstring strain, Tawa was no longer an aspiring Major League player, but rather a 26-year-old kid 24 hours from living his childhood dream.

That dream became a reality this past Saturday, and that reality seemed more like fantasy when Tawa singled in his first at-bat against the Nationals.

“I think (getting a hit in my first at-bat) helped me settle in for sure and just play the game,” Tawa said. “But at the same time, I was trying to take everything in and enjoy the moment as much as possible.”

I bet he was.

Making it to the Major Leagues is akin in some ways to winning the lottery. Only 7.3% of high school baseball players will go on to play in college; of those college players, only 0.5% will be chosen in the MLB draft; and with those factors in mind, the odds of making it to the major leagues is estimated at around 0.0045%, and that fails to take into account factors such as injury, timing and/or organizational complications.

Like life, making it to the “big leagues” is hard. The road is fraught with doubt, disappointment, depression, second, third and fourth guesses, and failure, something players with talent of this magnitude may be dealing with for the first time.

Which is why no one who accomplishes such a feat does so alone, and why Tawa said as much in the wake of his first game last weekend.

“(The key has been) consistent hard work, combined with an incredible support system of family, friends and great coaches and teammates,” Tawa said.

And that family was there to see him on Saturday.

His parents, his two brothers, and his girlfriend were in attendance, and he was sure his father left with the ball from his first major league hit as a thank you for all he (and his mother) had done to help him get there.

Trips to and from practices; financial and emotional support; and of course the countless hours spent on benches, in bleachers or in — if they were lucky — bucket seats simply cheering him on. It all mattered, and in the end played a significant role in doing something so few get to.

“It’s a dream come true and I’m incredibly excited and grateful for the opportunity,” Tawa said.

I know, it’s just baseball. And in a time in which so many are caught up in things that feel so much bigger, it to many would be considered relatively insignificant.

But while perspective is a real thing, I believe a proper and healthy one is sometimes prioritizing what seems not to matter, in lieu of things that should.

Control what you can, but don’t let the things you can’t get the best of you.

Tim Tawa had a dream, he worked toward that dream and never gave up on it, and in return he saw that dream become a reality. It wasn’t easy, he didn’t do it alone, and his journey is far from over. But while hard along the way, he never gave up and for that he was rewarded.

That should give us all hope, and is a lesson we’d all be better for learning.