It occurs to me that we often look around, like witnesses to a theft.
We see people who live in hard times or who endure life. Seemingly, I find myself wondering how they do it.
How does someone endure pains or the different stages of loss?

I have witnessed people who live in humble standings, or people who endure loss or letdowns which are engrained in their everyday living, and still, they manage to smile.
I know people who manage to get up, every day, despite life’s challenges, and they are still fair and kind and happy.
I admire this.

I was sitting with someone and listening to them tell me about the things they had to face. They were at the end of their rope and nearly at the end of their life.
I heard about the money they lost, the troubles they had, and the people that turned against them. They explained how this was self-inflicted.
I can remember the expression on this man’s face.
I assume this is what it means when people say that “they’re down and out.”
And I can appreciate this.
I’m sure we all can.

As it is with anything, there will always be tricks to the trade. The same goes for you or your craft. There will always be a little trick that we can pull to make life easier. For a better example, there will always be a way to work smarter, not harder. For a better life or for a better sense of mental fitness, it pays to learn about these little secrets.
It pays to learn them because otherwise, life is too crazy for us to go nuts.
Agreed?

Why are we afraid to change?
Why are we afraid to move forward or let go of the obvious things? Why are we afraid to let go of the ideas that either hurt us or held us back?
I think these are both fair and relatable questions.

If we are like a machine, or if we want to move like a machine and be smooth, then how are we able to find a sense of personal cohesion?
How do we move without intimidation?
Better yet, if we want to perfect what we do, than how do we remove the hiccups that create delays or cause us to fail at our moments of opportunity.
We have to move. We have to flow.
Of course, we do.

I have been asking you the question what is life?
What is this place?

Is this a waystation or is this some kind of momentary place where all things can, do, and will change?
Or maybe this is just a moment in time. You think?
Maybe this is some kind of temporary suspension, like a hint to an upcoming mystery, as if to foreshadow a new horizon which means, perhaps, maybe we should be looking for the obvious instead of overthinking the complications or digging in too deep.

What is life anyway?
What does it mean to live or get by and somehow, you have a few extra moments, at some point, just to look back at the work you’ve left behind, and say yeah, that was me.
I did that!

I suppose life is a collection of memories. Life is a series of moments and experiences and above all, life is the ever-changing road on which we began and, of course, we started, we found our way to the middle, and in the end, we find ourselves at the doorstep of mystery. And there we are at the entrance of twilight, wondering about the salvation of an afterlife or the sanctity of heaven, and thus, this is it.
No one knows what comes next.

This comes after a long night, which means this entry will be sappy, of course.
But there will be no apologies. Not for this anyway.
Perhaps I will apologize for what I have overlooked or took for granted. Maybe I will apologize for my shortsightedness or for the times when I saw the glass as half-empty instead of half-full.
But like I’ve been telling you, this is all part of a trick, which is not a trick to fool or to deceive but more, this is a trick to overcome the crazy bouts that come with insomnia and the unrelenting thoughts that linger until about 20 minutes before the alarm rings to get up and get out of bed.

Either way, this is from the heart.
All of it.

There comes a time when the excuses have to stop.
All of what we’ve done and what we’ve been through and, of course, all that we survived and endured have become part of our past as well as part of our life.
This is our seasoning.
Right?
This is what makes us who we are. Or, maybe not.
Maybe what makes us who we are isn’t about where we’ve come from. But more, this is about how we’ve overcome. Who we are is about how we’ve adapted, despite the challenges. Or more than anything else, who we are is not where we come but how we’ve faced our life and how we decided to make a change, whenever or wherever possible.

I have learned that there is a difference between someone who will hunt for sport and someone who will hunt for food. The difference is both huge and obvious. But moreover, when it comes to times of downfall or despair, the difference between the two is what decides which person will eat again and who will starve because of a lack or motivation.

The person who hunts for sport is not worried about their next meal or what happens if they shoot and miss. The person who hunts for food doesn’t know when they’ll eat again or where their next meal will come from. Therefore the intensity and intentions differ to a level of importance; whereas, one sees this as a game and the other sees this as a means to survive.

I was never emotional. Or should I say that I would never show emotion.
I would never share or talk about my emotions with anyone else, or tell someone about my feelings, or, at minimum, I would never dare to do this or expose my truths in fear that someone would tell about me or use this against me.
I never believed that it was safe to admit that I have feelings, which I do.
I have feelings.
We all do.

Everyone has feelings. We all have thoughts. We have desires. We have dreams and likes and needs and moments of weakness. This is all part of being human.
We have bouts with our own worries and self-doubt.
This is not just true. This is human.
At the same time, there is something brave about being human. There is something brave about being honest and open or humble and vulnerable.