226

You don’t have to turn this into something. It doesn’t have to upset you. Things can’t shape our decisions by themselves.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

For every thought and emotion wasted away on the petty, the inconsequential, and the irrelevant, we are on step further behind on what we originally set out to do.

Our time is finite, and so is our bandwidth. If we are not going to think about what it is that we’re supposed to do, at least spend it on the things that bring us joy—not misery.

225

We are so adept at cataloguing our shortcomings, and so inept at realizing our potential.

To focus on the present is not to become attached to it; it is precisely to remember that we cannot become attached to it, because it is ever changing, and ever eluding us. It is to remember that we are in this moment is not who we are in the next. To embrace who we are is to also simultaneously embrace who we will be.

224

All that we observe that is wrong with the world—a living display of our own ignorance and complacency, compounded across time, generation after generation.

For every modicum of frustration that we feel with others, with the present circumstances, and with the status quo, we have to redirect toward ourselves equally. Not merely so that we can avoid devolving into hypocrisy, but more so because it serves to remind us that we have as much power to destroy the world around us as we do to make it better. And in every action and in every thought is a choice between the two.

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.