208

It is easy to be grateful for what we have, but we rarely express enough gratitude for the things that we don’t have.

When we have currently is but a infinitesimally small fraction of what the universe could have given us, but didn’t.

207

Remembering how insignificant I am in the scope of the universe,

remembering how little I actually understand about the way things will be, much less how they should be,

remembering how these present struggles are merely one part of a greater story,

I realize how invulnerable I can be to abject suffering—free of the dread that comes from the bitterness I might feel against this world, others, and this existence.

206

The sun rises, and the sun goes down.

The earth turns and tilts, but never leaves its orbit.

Waves crash against the shoreline, and then they recede back into the ocean.

Day in and day out, we consign ourselves to routine.

We believe so firmly that today, that next week, that next month, that next year, will follow the same pattern as its former counterpart.

It’s a pattern by which we can use as a frame of reference for the rest of the chaos of life that pervades us. It’s predictable—until it isn’t. The reality always is that today, the earth, and the sun is never quite that same as it was yesterday, or whatever pattern it seems to repeat on. Everything is always shifting, and there will inevitably come the day when the sun ceases to rise, when the earth is shrouded in darkness or viciously fragmented into pieces, when there are no waves and no ocean, and everything that we understand as the world around us—our sense of time, our sense of place, our sense of what it means to live—seems to fall apart.

Never forget how fragile and transient we are, how many conditions we need to survive, let alone feel content or happy, and how naïve we are—to think that every day will be the same, and even more so, to think that we will come out being the same as well.

205

I’s never as if we don’t have a solution to our problems; all problems have solutions.

We’re just too impatient to see it through—to just wait a little longer, whether for the world or for ourselves to change.

204

Love is always conditional not because it it always transactional. It is conditional because there are prerequisite circumstances in which we, as humans, can love.

Because we do not possess infinite time nor energy,

because we need a reason to love,

because we cannot understand everything,

because our emotions exist,

our love must be conditional.

But with what time we have,

with what reason we can muster,

with the modicum of understanding we’ve accumulated,

with the heart that we’ve fostered over the course of our lives,

we can love with a love that is profoundly selfless, irrevocably pure, and absolutely powerful.

203

Before we rush to judge others and stand upon a pedestal of righteousness, let us remember how we were in our worst moments; let us remember the dejection and shame incurred by our own lives’ most critical mistakes; let us remember how it felt to lose all hope; let us remember what we all lost along the way; let us remember how much at one point we so desperately wished someone was just a little more kind, a little more forgiving, a little more understanding of us. Let that contrast our presumptuousness and contempt.

If we can stand to bear our own hypocrisy, then surely, let us continue forward in haughtiness.

And if we cannot, then all that’s left is to love. And to forgive.

202

Being stoic is not being unfeeling; it is not rejecting emotion, circumventing it, or suppressing it from ever existing in the first place.

In fact, it is the opposite of being unfeeling; it is hyper-awareness of the feeling itself. It is confronting the emotion head on—enveloping ourselves in every sensation that it evokes—so that we can intimately understand why these feelings exist, where they originate from, and how it ultimately influences our actions. It is a way to disentangle ourselves from the daunting, convoluted nature of our emotions and see that our only pathway forward is to focus only on the things within our control. It is also in understanding that our emotions are not only completely natural, but are a fundamental component of a fulfilling life; it is all that makes life miserable, and simultaneously, all that makes it worth living.

201

Don’t go about life expecting that you will always have something new to say every day; if what you have to say is something worthwhile, keep saying it until it is deeply internalized within you, and those around you.

After all, what else can we do but keep reminding ourselves of the truth that so many of us need yet refuse to accept?

200

There are only two ways in which we truly change—the sudden jolt of trauma that shatters our sense of complacency, or the gradual molding of the mind and spirit through intentional daily commitment and routine.

199

The hardest part about change is often not in getting ourselves to change.

It is realizing the fundamental reasons why we chose to postpone the change we needed up until now.

It is coming to terms with the never-ending torrent of excuses we’ve given ourselves, the innumerable chances to do better, the days upon weeks that have succumbed to complacency.

It is to lay bare our stark lack of mental resilience and our obstinate affinity towards the status quo.