299

I like to visualize potential as the endlessly deep wells of knowledge, residing within all of us, that are shrouded by inexperience.

The limiting factor of our potential—the efficacy of our knowledge and our ability to internalize it and influence our every thought and our every action—is often not our access to the knowledge itself; it is experience.

In moments of joy, moments of pain, and everything in between, we must always seek to unshackle our mind from these chains of our past—our preconceptions, our prejudices, and our trauma—to constantly reorient our definitions of right and wrong. Only then can we unlock our potential.

298

For every trial in our lives, what determines our success or failure, and thus subsequent pride or regret, was the daily commitment to preparing ourselves for that moment.

Every step of a run taken,

every gram of iron lifted,

every letter of a sentence written,

inching us ever closer to victory.

297

I have only one true fear—that I won’t ever be able to find you.

While I fear that circumstance may not be on our side, above all, I fear that I won’t be prepared enough. I fear that I won’t be able to be the person you need me to be.

I can hide behind logic, behind bravado, or behind a façade of nonchalance, but I know all too well the ravenous desire, the desperation that wells up in this heart when faced with the prospect of finally finding love.

But so as long as I remember that this is not a war between the mind and the heart, and I can learn to embrace this desire, guiding it along in some way that I can make sense of, I need not worry. Only then, where there is fear, there is also hope. Where there is pain, there is also redemption.

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.