The 10 Year Promise

We can either sell our soul, or we can live through it.

It’s hard to believe that life is some gift.

I’m an optimist, but also a realist.

Of all of the difficulties that I’ve complained about and misery I’ve put myself through constructed by my own mind, I arrogantly admit that I have a spirit that just won’t fucking die.

I’m proud of that.

Hence the optimist.

When gift comes to mind, it’s in the sense that ‘the gift’ is something to be realized. It means that in no way is such a gift given lightly or without the sacrifice to live it.

It’s a transaction.

Hence the realist.

At the age of 28, I made a deal with myself.

At the time of writing, I’m 34.

I have no recollection of how that conversation went or what I even said to myself….but I can still feel the emotion. I feel the internalized fire that was lit by a dissolving heartbreak and a passion to not die without first contributing something that I felt worthwhile to humanity.

It wasn’t about money.

It wasn’t about status.