The definition of work, to me, is to make some original contribution to the world.

If you think something is supposed to hurt, you’re less likely to notice if you’re doing it wrong. So go into new activities expecting to be great and do your best. That way, if you find you don’t like something, you know you’re being honest with yourself instead of just lazy.

If your work is not your favorite thing to do, you’ll have terrible problems with procrastination. You have to do something that you not only enjoy, but also admire.

Try to do things that would make your friends say “Wow!”

Friends should be your compass.

Do not worry about the opinion of anyone beyond your true friends and definitely do not worry about prestige. If you do anything well enough, you will make it prestigious.

Work on what you like, not what you would like to like.

“We are taught by great actions that the universe is the property of every individual in it.”

“The beauty of nature reforms itself in the mind, and not for barren contemplation, but for new creation.”

- Emerson

…All I have is a voice

To undo the folded lie

The romantic lie in the brain

Of the sensual man-in-the-street

And the lie of authority

Whose buildings grope the sky:

There is no such thing as the State

And no one exists alone;

Hungers allows no choice

To the citizen or the police;

We must love one another or die…

- W.H.Auden

A heavier mind than body

A heart weighed down with life

A life tied down with a past

Awake in a daze

Asleep in a nightmare

The meaningful dreaming has gone

My body has worn me out

I have worn out my body

Escape me from this life

Escape with me into another world

No one will ever truly know you besides yourself. And god.

We have so many relationships with different people, revealing different sides of ourselves to each one. We all have some kind of façade or versions of ourselves that we want others to see. And that becomes who we are through the people who see you that way.

How do you ever really know whether you love somebody? It really depends on your definition of love. If you want to talk about it in terms of unconditional love: the kind between family, true friends, and god. No Matter what, in the long run, you love that person because your primary concerns are for them to be happy, safe, and healthy. You want them to be all they can be, have all opportunities handed to them, and to see them succeed in whatever they wish to. This type of love includes tough love. Seen through parents and friends, they might do or say things that don’t appeal to your immediate gratification. You might feel you hate them for it. in the moment. But whether they were right or wrong, they did it out of love. They are trying to shape you into a person who they want you to be and who they believe you want to be too. They don’t want to see you in danger or in trouble. They want you to make these decisions for yourself, but don’t think you can right now… and that’s ok.

But what about romantic, true, BIG love. The notebook, head over heels, can’t live without you, toe-curling, two become one, married with a baby, fireworks, chemistry, together forever kind of love. Does it exist? And if so, is it only in our heads? Or can we see it? Do we feel it? How do you know? People say that when you’re in love, you will know. But I don’t think that’s true. I want this kind of love, but I don’t know how I would get there. I can never see myself feeling so completely overtaken by one person that I am not and will not be myself without them. I can’t see another person becoming part of me. And I would have thought that with this kind of passionate love that also means it’s eternal and mutual.

The adults are the ones who say that you don’t know what you want until your 25 or “they’re too young to be in love, it’s just lust”. But I find it interesting that young people will date for many consecutive years without even the thought of marriage and adults will date for maybe a year or so and then decide to get married. Is time and age the only factor that makes us want to get married? How it is SO common that everybody in our culture finds THE ONE between the ages of 20 and 30? When did this become a rule and it seems just a little bit too convenient to be real. And the same people who say those things are the same ones who get divorced 10 years later.

When I get married…. Which I will… I wont get divorced. I don’t believe in divorce. Love never dies. But it does go through different stages. People change over time, some for good, some not so much. But that love they felt at the time they committed their whole life to that person is still there deep inside of them. It may be hard to find. Hard to forgive. But when you’re married, I think that’s a hardship you promised to your partner. And they promised right back. You can’t live your life taking the easy way out. One fight. One breach of trust. One mistake. Is that all we get? Where’s forgiveness? Where’s openness and honesty? Have we lost it over time? And there is it again. Time controlling when we find and when we end love.

You hid it from your parents and ate it until you got sick.

In college it was the combo of youth, tequila, and well you know…

You take as much of the good as your can get

Because it doesn’t come around as often as it should

Good things aren’t always what they seem.

Too much of anything. even love.

Is not always a good thing.

Pain.

Hope the wound that caused it heals. You just have to ride it out.

You just breathe deep. And wait for it to subside.

Pain can be managed. Most of the time.

But sometimes the pain gets you when you least expect it.

You just have to fight through.

Because the truth is… you can’t outrun it.

And life always makes more.

Admiring the struggle it takes simply to be human.

Maybe we’re thankful for the things we’ll never know.

Who ever said that the things we don’t know can’t hurt us. Was wrong.

I wont spend my life wondering. Asking what if.

And it’s easier to be alone than to think alone

Nothing can cripple the will like isolation

And nothing can inspire it like solitude

Alone with the stars and their ability to enlighten the universe

Every man reveres at the enormity

And awakened is their deeper sense of consciousness

Our curiosity can never be lost

Because never can we find out all of their perfection they are unattainable.

Man may implore genius by turning wood into paper

But a poet can find genius in the tree

Wisdom is found

And only in nature can we see it.

No man can own a view

a sense that the world is turning

No height can be reached without the ground to get there.

The artist lives within the eye

For only it can see how we are trivial

Our mind confined in the skull can never produce perspective

But only in the vision of infinity can we find appreciation for life.

The finish line at the end of the race.

Waiting in line for a chance to try.

And then there is the most important line.

The line separating you from the people and yourself.

It never helps to get too familiar. To make friends.

You need boundaries. Between you and the rest of the world.

Other people are far too messy.

It’s all about lines. Drawing lines in the sand. And praying like hell no one crosses them.

But at some point you have to make a decision. Boundaries don’t keep other people out. They fence you in. life is messy. That’s how we’re made.

So you can waste your life drawing lines. Or you can live your life crossing them.

Here’s what I know. If you’re willing to take the chance, then the view from the other side is spectacular.