Everything's a Metaphor

1. Do not delete or destroy the things that make you happy. If it made you happy then, keep it. It may hurt to look at or even think about now, but someday, when the hurt has passed, it will be a treasure to you. Maybe you will even look back at it and laugh. What is precious now will be precious again someday. Words written in the heat of emotion, gifts made with love, photos of your smiling face with the ones you love…keep it. Put it on a hard drive; put it in a box under your bed; stow it in the attic. But keep it. Just trust me on this.

2. Regret nothing. I have taken enough ‘wrong turns’ in my life to know that nothing ever goes as planned, but that does not mean it was not significant. So you dated someone who wasn’t good for you; it taught you that you deserve better. So you spent a hundred dollars on a plane ticket to visit a friend you no longer speak to; what does it matter? You took a chance on someone you cared about. You invested your money and your heart into something. Good for you. We learn from everything, even the bad things, so stop saying “I wish I hadn’t…” Just appreciate the fact that every experience has added color to your life. Regret is a disease and it will spread, so stop it.

3. Always be open to new ideas. Talk to Buddhists and Atheists and Scientologists and Catholics and Mormons and Lutherans and Baptists. Everybody has different ideas and beliefs, and you can learn so much from someone who thinks differently than you do. You will grow. Your mind will expand. Your heart will open. Stop this idea that every opposing view you encounter is going to sway your beliefs; if you think that, then your beliefs aren’t that strong to begin with. You might learn a thing or two along the way.

4. Stop telling yourself “I can’t”. Take a look at whatever your situation is and ask yourself, “what is really holding me back?” If you truly, genuinely want to do something, then do it. Stop making excuses. Make the time, spend the money, get on the plane, move across the country. Whatever it is, if it means that much to you, you’ll do it, or else you’ll spend the rest of your life wondering what could have been. And trust me when I say that is the scariest thing in the world. Look at yourself in the mirror and remind yourself that there is nothing you can’t do.

Typewriter Series #3005 by Tyler Knott Gregson

Embarrassed at what I’ve called struggle.  

400 years of shackles, of fighting the same fight.   Short of this, do not talk to me of frustration, of heartbreak, of some monstrous helplessness, of ache.  

Apology is just the beginning, reparations only the start, some debts cannot ever be repaid.