letter to a little lone

five things i wish i could've said to a younger me

dear zara,

i know shit feels rough right now, like no one understands you. life is a lot harder and a lot easier than we make it sometimes. its hard to sell that to someone who feels like its them against the world, who feels grossly misunderstood, who's been let down so many times that most of this just feels like optimistic jargon targeted at angsty teens to sell them the idea that life isn't as shitty as it seems. i decided to pen this letter to you because i know that sometimes, we just need to hear these things - regardless of how well we know them. as i've grown, i've come to understand life on a deeper level and the complexity of it has only been brought forth through simplicity. seems kind of crazy, doesn't it?

1. you are in charge of your destiny. no one and nothing else. you will speak your life into existence. this is the most important sentence you will ever read. you are infinitely capable of more than you believe. stop glorifying the principle of helplessness and take charge of your Self and your existence.

2. forgive. yourself, others, strangers, family, friends, people. forgive and you will learn the concept of detachment, which will help you achieve greatness in this lifetime. live in the moment, not the past.

3. love and hate are on the same side of the coin, they are not on polar ends of the spectrum. indifference is the true opposite of both. chew on that for a little while and let it simmer. this seems like a small thought but the more aware of this you are, the better decisions you will allow yourself to make.

4. stop trying to be captain save'em. not everyone in this lifetime is your responsibility. and understand that you are not anybody else's. you are an entity within yourself. the moments in your life that you are going to have to experience alone is where the greatest amount of growth is going to occur. don't hinder someone else's experience by holding their hand through it, some things are meant to hurt.

5. don't be afraid of questioning your beliefs. you are a student in this lifetime. you are meant to fail and fail and fail until you don't any more. many successful people have reiterated to me that the whole point wasn't the destination, rather the journey from where we began to where we emerge. you have to learn not to feel dejected by failure, rather, learn to empower yourself through failure because you have crossed out one more way that something won't work - bringing you closer to the one way that it will.

i know shit feels rough right now, its supposed to. embrace the moments in your life where you feel down. when you work out, you have to rip your muscles the tiniest bit in order for them to grow stronger. human biology is just a microcosm of life just as the entirety of the universe is just a macrocosm.

curiosity is your greatest ally, failure is your greatest teacher, and knowledge is your strongest weapon.

with love and light, always.

- z