Essays, gathered into constellations — ways of seeing rather than topics.https://itonlyhappensonce.bloghttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/self-affirmationhttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/self-affirmationYou’re on the right path. Maybe I’m not. Everything is going to be okay. Perhaps it isn’t. Believe in yourself. It could be that I’m wrong. Whenever we seek to offer affirmations, whether invoking these sanguine notions of self-worth and blind optimism within our own mind or that of others, we must not blithely assume that it’s for everyone. For some, self-affirmation undermines a heuristic…Tue, 11 Aug 2026 20:46:00 GMThttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/to-tryhttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/to-tryAmong the most common objections I’ve received when I shared with others that I don’t believe in free will is that it somehow means one shouldn’t try—that we shouldn't apply ourselves or put in effort in self-actualization. The logic goes that if we have no actual choice in determining who we are and thus why we do anything, we should just give up. However, saying that our choices are unimportant…Tue, 11 Aug 2026 16:22:00 GMThttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/on-choosing-a-partnerhttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/on-choosing-a-partnerIn my teenage years—in tandem with all the other naïve and absurd thoughts that used to inhabit this mind—I approached every potential relationship believing that it could work irrespective of the circumstances. Likely merely a subconscious response to ameliorate myself from the persistent sting of loneliness, I blinded myself to the glaringly obvious unanswered questions: Have I spent enough…Wed, 12 Jul 2023 17:18:18 GMThttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/colorhttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/color“The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny—it is the light that guides your way.” ― Heraclitus For a long time now, I’ve made it a habit to marvel at the ridiculousness, the…Wed, 05 Jul 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/confidencehttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/confidenceWhy is it that we glorify confidence as one of the hallmarks of a strong, resilient character, when it has proven time and time again that it fails us? When we succeed, we do not hesitate to attribute our it to our determination, our resolve, our tenacity. But when we fail, we are all too eager to sweep it under the rug, to turn a blind eye to the fact that we blatantly misled ourselves, and to…Thu, 29 Jun 2023 05:05:00 GMThttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/the-hearthttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/the-heartEver since I started this blog six months ago in December, there’s no question that I’ve fundamentally changed. In everything that I do, I am able to think with clarity in perspective and reason, to hone my words with sharpness in focus and intent, and ground myself in truth and purpose. For virtually my entire life, I’ve been subjugated by the thought of failure and loss, of inadequacy and…Wed, 21 Jun 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/naturalhttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/naturalI’ve always found it particularly interesting that some may find it rational to justify the overly high standards of modern dating culture—the preemptive raising of “red flags,” absurd and arbitrary perfectionist demands in physical attractiveness, characterological traits, and for the entire dating process from start to finish to be free of discomfort or strife. Many still seem to justify it as…Wed, 14 Jun 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/the-fear-of-missing-outhttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/the-fear-of-missing-outThe mainstream notion of “the fear of missing out” is fundamentally flawed. When we truly take time to think about it—when we consider the staggering scale and complexity associated with absolutely everything that we could ever do in our entire life—we actually accomplish very little in our lives. Irrespective of the degree of ambition or initiative we have to cross off every item on our bucket…Wed, 07 Jun 2023 17:06:14 GMThttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/forgivenesshttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/forgivenessWe find it all too easy to be haughty, to be disdainful, to speak with a choleric air of arrogance and superiority when we impudently operate by the premise that the people we’re speaking to are intentionally lazy, careless, inattentive, selfish, immoral, or hypocritical. But time and time again, once we actually take the time to learn the other person’s story, we regret our contemptuous…Wed, 31 May 2023 21:55:44 GMThttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/lessons-learnedhttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/lessons-learnedWhen there were hundreds of millions of people who lost everything in all the horrific wars of the last century, why do we in the present day lay complacent? Why do we continue to perpetuate hate, intolerance, and violence in our world when they are the indisputable root cause of such catastrophes and atrocities? Why do we persist in this ambivalence about the nature of right and wrong, when, for…Wed, 24 May 2023 16:30:37 GMThttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/textinghttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/textingGhosting has undeniably become a problem. Whether committed within the context of job applications, job resignations, dating apps, or the average text conversation between friends, family, or acquaintances, it seems to elicit the uglier aspects of human nature within social interaction. But I would argue that the issue is less in the act of ghosting itself, but more so in the act of being…Wed, 10 May 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/choicehttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/choiceOne of the fundamental paradoxes of our lives is the one of choice. In the contemplation of our decisions—our rudimentary, superficial calculus of cause and effect, our biased judgments of what constitutes a good or bad outcome, and our overweening faith in a stable, predictable world—we often forget that, as humans, we have an absolutely horrendous track record at predicting the future, and an…Wed, 03 May 2023 10:00:00 GMThttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/a-certain-vibehttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/a-certain-vibeI’ve had a bad history of falling in love far too easily, yet being haplessly daunted by rejection; more precisely, it was the anticipation of rejection and not rejection itself that ultimately sabotaged me in my quest to find love. Throughout my teenage and college years, despite overidealizing the notion of romance and being overly susceptible to the capriciousness of my romantic impulses that…Wed, 19 Apr 2023 15:01:00 GMThttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/paradoxes-of-the-human-conditionhttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/paradoxes-of-the-human-conditionHappiness cannot exist without suffering, joy cannot exist without pain, learning cannot exist without mistakes, success cannot exist without failure, excitement cannot exist without tedium, yet we balk and groan when we are forced to confront the latter. It is almost a universal rule that everything in our lives, whether a certain type of food, a certain type of work, a certain type of leisure…Wed, 12 Apr 2023 15:45:57 GMThttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/conveniencehttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/convenienceFor most of us, time is precious. Most of us can agree that we don’t have enough time in a day. A vast majority of our waking hours are spent at school, at work, doing chores, or running errands. In order to maximize our time, we are presented with a myriad of options to make our life more convenient. But in compelling us into a myopic pursuit to save time and effort—when perhaps neither time nor…Wed, 05 Apr 2023 22:17:00 GMThttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/april-fools-dayhttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/april-fools-dayThis is a day where we partake in the act of poking fun at the instincts pertaining to our sensibilities, of pushing the boundaries of what we believe is real, of testing the limits of our conceptions of absurdity—how each of us would react when presented with something ostensibly outrageous yet remotely plausible. The only problem is that we live in an era where “ostensibly outrageous yet…Sat, 01 Apr 2023 18:54:00 GMThttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/a-life-well-livedhttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/a-life-well-livedHow do we live a happy and fulfilling life? Isn’t it odd that people in this day and age continue to ponder answers to this hackneyed question when, as we do with virtually everything else in our lives, we can merely Google it and get more than adequate answers at a moment’s notice? Our understanding of human psychology has advanced so significantly in the last several centuries that the supposed…Wed, 29 Mar 2023 13:27:33 GMThttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/detachedhttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/detached> Snow covered the ground, and once again the green lights shined upon me as I went to sit on the cold bench. I sat there for a good hour or so, just mourning the death of my positive-thinking mind. I didn't know what to do to make my life better again, when I would be motivated to do my work, pursue a dream, and wake up with something to look forward to in the day. I was lonely, and I wasn't…Wed, 22 Mar 2023 20:01:00 GMThttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/the-spirit-of-jazzhttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/the-spirit-of-jazzFor the majority of my life, the music I listened to was consistent. It was consistent in the sense that for a given song, whether through recording or live performance, there was more or less one version of it; the primary components of the music—the lyrics, the melodies, harmonies, rhythms, textures, and structure—were relatively the same across multiple renditions, if not completely…Wed, 15 Mar 2023 09:59:00 GMThttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/venerationhttps://itonlyhappensonce.blog/blog/venerationThere are people we look up to in life—perhaps our parents or grandparents, perhaps an older sibling or a successful friend, perhaps our favorite athletes, artists, or authors, perhaps a pastor or a priest, perhaps a venerated guru or sage. We go to them for direction when lost, for solace when distraught, for motivation when unmotivated, for inspiration when uninspired, for love when unloved. We…Sun, 12 Mar 2023 19:00:00 GMT