In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o'clock in

F. Scott Fitzgerald, the chronicler of the Jazz Age and the poet of broken dreams, once wrote: “In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day.” These words are not idle poetry, but the cry of a man who knew despair intimately, who had walked the midnight corridors of the spirit. The dark night of the soul—a phrase older than Fitzgerald himself—describes that season when hope withers, when meaning evaporates, when existence itself feels endless in its emptiness. And in this place, Fitzgerald tells us, it is always three o’clock in the morning—that hour when the world is asleep, when silence presses heavily, when the body is weary but the mind will not rest.

The origin of this phrase lies in ancient mysticism. The Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross wrote of “La noche oscura del alma,” the dark night of the soul, describing the soul’s passage through suffering, emptiness, and loss on its way to union with the divine. Fitzgerald, though far removed from monasteries and cloisters, borrowed this phrase for his own age of disillusionment. For him, the dark night was not the path to God, but the abyss of depression, the endless loop of weariness and despair. And he set it at three in the morning, a time both literal and symbolic, when the night feels longest, and morning seems impossibly far away.

History is filled with souls who have endured such nights. Consider Abraham Lincoln, who in his private writings confessed to melancholy so deep that his friends feared for his life. To lead a nation in war while carrying the burden of despair was his “three o’clock in the morning” made flesh. Yet from his darkness came words of light: the Gettysburg Address, the Second Inaugural, which still stir hearts centuries later. The night was real, but so was the dawn that followed.

So too with Fitzgerald himself. Though he gave us The Great Gatsby, one of the most luminous novels of the twentieth century, he also endured years of financial ruin, personal despair, and the illness of his beloved Zelda. In his letters and essays, one finds the echoes of three o’clock in the morning—a restless mind unable to sleep, haunted by regret, convinced that joy had departed forever. His quote is no abstraction; it is autobiography, a testimony written in the shadows of his own struggle.

Yet within this darkness lies a teaching. Fitzgerald reveals that despair, once it grips the soul, stretches time. A single moment of hopelessness repeats itself endlessly, making every day feel like the same endless night. But this is also where wisdom lies: to recognize that what feels eternal is not eternal, that time bends beneath the weight of the soul’s suffering, but still moves forward. Just as dawn always follows midnight, so too can healing follow despair, even when it feels otherwise.

The lesson for us is twofold. First, we must have compassion—for ourselves and for others—when caught in such nights. To tell a weary soul to “cheer up” is foolish; better to sit beside them in silence, to remind them that though they feel trapped at three o’clock, morning still waits beyond the horizon. Second, we must cultivate practices of endurance: prayer, journaling, companionship, art, or simple rest. These are the lanterns we carry through the long night until dawn finally breaks.

Therefore, take this wisdom into your heart: if you find yourself in a dark night of the soul, do not despair that it is endless. Know that time itself is distorted by sorrow, but not destroyed. Hold fast, endure, and remember that even at three in the morning, the sun is already rising somewhere over the earth. And just as it has risen for countless generations before you, it will rise again for you.

For in the end, Fitzgerald’s words remind us of the fragility of the human heart, but also of its resilience. Though the night may seem unending, though every day may feel trapped in the same hour of despair, morning will come. And when it does, the soul that endured the night will see the dawn with eyes that understand its worth far more deeply than those who never suffered its absence.