296

So much impatience, so much unrest that persists in this heart of mine—to want so desperately to hold you in my arms, to walk with you in this life, to change our world forever.

But if I truly love you, I must be ready.

I will continue to do my due diligence—to not neglect the value in the day-to-day training, to hone my thoughts and push the body, to prepare myself for the trials that lay ahead.

I’ve succumbed to fear and to complacency for far too long. Just do what you’ve been called to do.

And if I fail? At the very least, I don’t have to live with the shame of not trying.

295

There is no way to become unbreakable without breaking yourself first. Our minds simply do not work in any other way.

Wisdom is never the sole means to achieving peace. Gleaning knowledge from a dense book, listening to a lengthy lecture in great detail, receiving advice from a dear friend—it can guide you along, but only if you put yourself in a situation where you actually need guidance. Otherwise, they are nothing but tenuous notions suspended in the void, untethered to our pain, disconnected from our toil, and devoid of any true, internalized meaning.

294

I don’t have regret simply because I don’t feel that I could have done otherwise.

If there was a better decision to make at the time, why wouldn’t I have made it?

There were always reasons for what we do and don’t do; we should stop pretending as if they didn’t exist.

293

Today I woke up not with the fleeting emotional exhaustion I normally feel from my anxiety dreams, but with a peculiar yearning—a tired, dazed grasp into this void in my heart.

I feel defenseless against you. I strive to maintain composure, to not make a fool of myself, to not reveal this burgeoning, boundless love of this heart. I might outwardly act as if I am at peace with whichever outcome, as I do for the vast majority of things in my life, but I know—in the throbbing of this tender heart, this yearning of my soul reverberating through my bones, the undeniable and inexorable sensation of anticipation from my viscera that I could have finally found love—there’s nothing I want more than you.

292

They always say to live in the present,

but what is the present,

but an aggregation of the past?

291

What is the point of talking about free will? So we can remember how much our circumstances affect the way we think, and thus what we do.

And if we wish to break free of our circumstances—to live a life unchained by the past—there is no way around understanding this concept, whether explicitly or implicitly.

290

While there is no way of ever knowing the predetermined course of our actions, it does not change the fact that all of our action and inaction alike still matter; they are, after all, the very inextricable elements that constitute that immutable course of the universe. Thinking that the choices do not matter is itself a choice that matters. Not thinking about the consequences of choices is also itself a choice that matters.

Indeed, the universe may already know what choice you will make and what thoughts will lead you to that choice, but, paradoxically, the act itself of relinquishing responsibility—or ignoring it altogether—is the action that, within a parallel universe, would lead you down a less favorable path.

If you were blessed enough to have the malleability and openness of mind that grants you the ability to discern, then make the right choice.

289

We are more than our fears and our desires, but it doesn’t change the fact that they exist.

All of our stories revolve around this tension between morality and biology, between emotion and reason, between the mind and the heart.

On either side is neither victor nor defeat.

There is only meaning.

288

Whenever you feel like giving up, think of all the times you felt like giving up, but didn’t.

Whenever you feel as though you have nothing to say, think of all the times you did find something to say.

In your worst moments, remember who got you out.

It was you. And it was always only you.

Don’t fucking underestimate yourself.

287

What is this inadequacy welling up inside of you?

If it belies the gratitude that you say you have, then crush it. You have everything that you could ever need, and certainly a life that you would envy in the future.

It should neither devolve into unwarranted complacency nor unbridled desperation, neither laziness nor burnout.