223

The reasons to be angry with the world are endless.

And if it’s all endless, then we might as well begin here—with ourselves.

222

I don’t feel like it.

All the more reason to believe I should do it.

221

As humans, we are amazingly adept at recognizing patterns—at piecing together the parts of the puzzle, to conjoin the disparate fragments of our perception to build intricate stories.

Yet we are so shortsighted that we often forget that patterns do not necessarily reflect reality. We so often forget that in our subconscious, we would much rather have a story that is potentially false than bear the daunting prospect of uncertainty, of endless possibility that we might be forced to navigate.

220

Let us not squander our energy channeling our anger towards those who don’t know any better; channel it towards the actual evil in the world.

And in doing so, we can realize how little of it actually exists, but the true sources of evil are sparse not because they aren’t powerful, but because a modicum of evil taints far more than we might expect.

219

Suffering is inevitable, but misery is not.

Misery is an abject form of suffering, wherein one subjects themselves not only to the raw physical and mental stress of an outside event, but also to layers of bitterness, dejection, and hatred that warps and devolves the world around them, eliminating any possibility of redemption, of change, and triumph.

We can avoid misery by simply remembering that in every moment there is a choice—a choice to do only what’s in our power to do, to remember what makes this life worth living in the first place, to eschew our preconceptions of the world and the people around us, to see beyond the nebulous clouds of our emotional state.

218

It only happens once, and there is only one chance to capture it.

And in every chance is an opportunity to see things differently, to see something about ourselves that we haven’t before, or to share something that’s worth sharing.

216

For so many of us, culture defines we are. It determines our conception of right and wrong, what we believe, and why we believe it; it is the difference between joy and misery in sufficient or insufficient circumstances alike. It is the setting and the premise of every story that we write for ourselves in this life.

And if we are to change another beside us, or, better yet, the ones that will come after us—to help them see the way we see things, to help them believe what we believe, and to know what we know—we have to change the culture.

215

“Sorry” ceases to make sense if we believe that things couldn’t have happened any other way. If the world, and our minds, are locked into an inevitable course, one event causing another, then what is there to be sorry for?

But “sorry" is not so much that we are apologizing for what has been done, or that we truly believe we had it in ourselves to do things differently, but more so that we vow to do better next time—that our mind and our heart has been changed by the stark reality of circumstance, and of consequence.

214

The tendency to over-romanticize can strengthen affection.

Loneliness will only make the moment of finding the right person more momentous.

The discomfort associated with uncertainty will only make finding certainty that much stronger.

Self-doubt can become humility.

Self-centeredness can become assertiveness.

In all this, there is always a choice. And the choice is to see our traits neither as good nor bad, not deficient nor beneficial, but simply existing.

213

The very fact that we can even consider life as a facetious, non-serious endeavor—something that we can go about laughing with contempt, to wander blithely in ignorance, to denigrate the value of this world and those around us—is by the far most profligate display of our privilege.

For those that have to forcibly endure hardship after hardship, for those that are tormented incessantly by evil forces, and for those that wish for a modicum of the luxuries that we take for granted every day of our complacent lives—there is no choice but to take life seriously, if not for themselves, then for those that they love.