Just a few of the things I’ve learned lately:

Life is unfair. It will take everything from you, if you let it, and offer nothing back. Equivalent exchange is a meaningless phrase wrought out of desperation to make everything nonsensical conform to some grand scheme i truly believe to be nonexistant.

Harsh words and actions remain in memory far longer than a smile. Sadly, it has always been this way. I will most likely be far better remembered for every wrong I have ever commited than for any good things I try to accomplish. However;

I can decide each day how I will affect my world. I can simply let each moment and opportunity pass, justified in the fact that nature will take it’s course, or I can make a stand. I can choose to make today better than yesterday was. And if I’m feeling truly noble, I can attempt to do so more for my friends and enemies than myself.

I cannot be a sheep. I do not follow well, I am far too opinionated, and my vision is far too good (I wear glasses for a reason;)). I cannot be a shepherd. I am still finding my own way through life’s twisting and confusing pathways. I can be a good friend. All one must do is allow me to be who I am.

I do not expect to be accepted. I have many quirks and eccentricities. I’m random as hell, I speak my mind, and I often do so long before I think about how I mean it to sound. I’m still working on that. And I know I will likely alienate many before I am done. I do not intend to do so, but intentions often carry as much weight as the space it takes to speak them.

Everything in life is valuable. Every loss, every gain, everything. Every moment is a new opportunity to learn, to grow, to challenge oneself. Losses would bear no meaning if we never gained, and the opposite is also true. The imbalance is in our reaction to those gains and losses. Pain cuts far deeper than we allow joy to soothe. Joy is not a smile.

Joy is a place inside where you cannot be sad. Where everything is okay. Where tomorrow will be better just because the sun will rise. Where those we love and have lost are always with us. My losses are few, I have been abandoned far too often to lose anything, really. My family is small, and always has been. An entire city in Tennessee bears my mother’s maiden name. I have never met my grandmother, because half black children are an abomination in her eyes. Most of my relatives seem to agree. They are not a part of my happiness.