303

Philosophy is not a hobby.

Discerning right from wrong is not something we do for fun. We do it because we owe it to ourselves, to the people around us, and the people that have preceded us, to do better.

302

It’s all too easy to judge our past selves unfairly and dismiss our once held beliefs as delusions, as if we were blind, ignorant, and unable to see the truth. No—we saw the truth all too well. Depression, or just intense bouts of sadness, are often not delusions; in fact, the very problem is that in that state, we are too focused on certain truths about our world that make us miserable, so much so that we obstinately refuse to see the truths that can make us joyful.

There are extremely valid reasons to despise yourself, other people, human nature, the abhorrent condition of our society, and the abysmal state of the world. But there are also extremely valid reasons to embrace our blessings, our stories, and our fate that links us all together, to cherish the love and the infinite beauty that abounds on this earth.

We may think that we are seeing things “as they are,” when in reality, it is only as they partially are. The choice of one over the other does not determine right or wrong; it only determines misery or joy.

301

When I was at some of my lowest points in my life, I sometimes had this belief that I was on the frontier of the human condition, investigating the boundaries of meaning, pioneering definitions of belonging or purpose. But the reality was that everything that I had once felt has most certainly been felt before. Disillusionment, betrayal, apathy, disconsolation, uncertainty—they’ve all been discussed ad nauseam for centuries, if not millennia, because they are core parts of the human condition.

300

As much as the notion of a soulmate—someone in this world that is destined for me—captivates me, I understand the world well enough to know that it is often thwarted by circumstance—by who we are compared to everyone else, by our status, by our material possessions, by our physical appearance, by convenience and comfort. It seems as though there’s nothing actually about the interconnection of two souls because of fate, but a cold calculus of compatibility within the human mind.

Perhaps all that’s left to define the significance of what we might define as a soulmate is its direct correlation with its ability to persist against the odds. Perhaps the truth is that the wayward tides of circumstance—the increasingly miniscule chances of connecting with someone at this level, where seemingly the stars must align to create the conditions to engender such an inexplicable, inextricable connection between two minds and two hearts—are the very reason it continues to bear any meaning in the harsh reality of our world.

So if I do find you—after all this time, after all these trials, after all the bouts of heartache and disconsolation, after all this senseless vacillation between apathy and desperation, after all these moments of joy that felt irrevocably incomplete, all amidst the immeasurable vastness of this world we live in—it would all make sense.

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.