My Next Breath

Information is what squelches fear. We are only afraid of the unknown. Ignorance, or lack of experience, is simply a lack of data. Not all information takes away fear, but any amount of it can dampen the insecurities and the killing unknowns of fear.

Time is undeniable; none of us can slow it, stanch it, hold it back. Given that fundamental truth, what the hell are we waiting for?

For a start, I already knew that obstacles, problems, and failures were my allies, not my enemies. Setbacks, far from stanching my ability to move forward, are actually the foundation upon which my successes are built. This is not simply a case of "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." I welcome obstacles. They give me the first Woburn away everything that could potentially get in my way.

I knew then, as I know now to this day and will always know: Death is not something to be afraid of.

I'll never have a bad day for the rest of my life. To learn that all I had to do was die.

Love slowly, quietly, and patiently waits for hate to simply burn out. It requires so much more energy to hate than to love, and love has all the time in the world.

I am better than I have ever been, happier and more fulfilled and more deeply connected to those around me than I have ever known. I understand the privilege and the honor that brings, so I'm going to spend the rest of my years giving back the best I can. I remain keenly aware that I'll never have a bad day for the rest of my life. And to learn all that, all I had to do was die.

To me death is a confirmation of life, something always connected and eternal. It is not dark, not the end, not a disaster - it is magnificent, and exhilarating; it is your soul, and your love, concentrated into their purest forms. Dying, you become connected to the collective energy everywhere all at once, which is itself a kind of divinity. And it is a fierce teacher. Dying I learned the futility and temporary nature of hatred, ranged as it is against the permanence of love. Though fear and hatred are the flashiest and sometimes the most powerful human emotions, they are merely the hare facing off against the tortoise of love. Love slowly, quietly, and patiently waits for hate to simply burn out. It requires so much more energy to hate than to love, and love has all the time in the world. The only way love wins is across a span of time - it's not an instant fix to anything, but it always wins.

When you really know what you're focused on, you can manifest what you truly want in your life. The trick is to get out of our own damn way. I guarantee that we are the biggest obstacle to achieving the things we want to achieve. But because we're not often clear in what we want, if we're off course or unfocused, we're just going to be like an electron bouncing around the nucleus of a cell, or a planet floating around this star of fire, forever burning energy as we just flail around through life. That's not good.

you have to commit to action whenever you can.

It requires so much more energy to hate than to love, and love has all the time in the world.

once I realized that knowledge defeated anxiety every time.

To this day I think finding out what you don’t want to do is just as important—maybe more important—than finding what you’re good at.

We all spend so much of our lives trying not to feel something, trying not to feel anything, just to get through; that couldn’t happen here. We had to feel together, and recover together.

In everything, we can always control our perspective. We’re all the authors of our own narrative. How we feel about things is down to us and how we perceive things—it’s our responsibility to control our perspective. We all have the capacity to captain our own ship. With permission to board the vessel, we now set our long course to press on with the simple task of capturing the next breath.

We are all sucked into it, through those little computers we carry around with us in our pockets, machines whose algorithms force us to bear silent witness to catastrophes all around the globe constantly, even when there’s nothing we can do about them except be drawn down into a caldera of depression and inertia.

We shouldn’t wait for the edge of the cliff before enjoying the mountainside that brought us there.

When you really know what you’re focused on, you can manifest what you truly want in your life. The trick is to get out of our own damn way.

Another fear was being told no (fear of rejection)—

How do you really know until you’re really tested?

Though fear and hatred are the flashiest and sometimes the most powerful human emotions, they are merely the hare facing off against the tortoise of love. Love slowly, quietly, and patiently waits for hate to simply burn out. It requires so much more energy to hate than to love, and love has all the time in the world.

From an early age I’ve always known that my family will always be there for me no matter what happens in my life, that they will always literally and metaphorically take me to a less-used lane and show me that I matter, never mind what wrong choices I might make—whatever it is, they’re still there to always love me.

Actually, I want to shoot that kind of person, the one who’s perky and positive every single morning and all day long. I know those super-positive people, and I’m not much of a fan of someone who is constantly looking on the bright side.

My new life is way more deeply rooted in the art of emotion—I now feel everything physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and though sharing that is vulnerable and intimate, it’s also honest, so even though there’s heaviness to it, it’s actually really light and freeing.

He sees that burgeoning pool of blood coming out of the back of my head.