What now?

The first step toward happiness is acceptance. The fist step toward acceptance is to know who you are. Not who you will be, not who you're working toward. Not who you someday might be, but who you are. If you can't see your own self clearly, bad teeth, pot belly, bald spot and all, well then, brother, your lost.

This doesn't mean you have to give up where you're going; what your striving for, who you hope to be. No, all of that is necessary. Without it, well, brother, your lost. What it does mean is that you can't hide behind where you're going anymore. The first step of acceptance is knowing yourself as you are. Knowing yourself as you are is the first step to taking a goddamn step down the path of who you want to be. These days when it's hard to find the courage to dream anymore, you have to find the courage to go past dreaming and take a goddamn step. If you smoke too much, if you drink too much, if you're too lazy: don't refuse to look there just because you're afraid you might make peace with it. Those who make peace with it rarely regret having done so. If you can make peace with it, fuck the road to happiness, just dwell in it.

If you can't make peace with it. Dwell in the discomfort of that lack of peace. Burn in it. If you don't move from there, something will burn up, I promise you. The something will be your resistance. You're resistance to what, I don't know. If it's your resistance to making peace, well then fuck yeah, just read the preceding paragraph again, huh? If it's your resistance to the effort well then, fuck yeah, it's about time isn't it? Want to be a professor? Get the fuck back in school. Want to design websites? Write books? Dreams don't write themselves. Too much work? Then go back to the question of peace with who you are. Those are the only two answers. Stop avoiding the question.