even the coldest of winter nights.
These are my stories, my darkest moments, my happiest of accidents, and my journey to see beyond what was right in front of me. I, like you, have made some bone-headed mistakes, and then repeated them a half dozen times before noticing a pattern and trying to learn from those mistakes. The purpose of these stories isn’t to show you how to live or to tell you what to do like the wellness gurus I just scoffed at. It’s to help you realize you’re not alone in the challenges you face and to help you remember that you can transform those challenges with a new perspective. It’s possible to see the treasure that was always hiding among the trash.
We see ourselves in the stories of others and can free ourselves by writing the story of our own lives. I share my stories not only to help you figure out yours, but to also continue to make sense and find beauty in mine. A voice in my head continues to tell me that my stories aren’t worth sharing and that it’s egotistical to assume anyone would care to read them. But another voice is emerging, a voice that reminds me that we’re all in this together and that sharing my challenges and experiences, and the lessons I have learned from them, will contribute to a world beyond myself. After all, storytelling has been an essential tool for our evolution as a species.
Maybe being a great writer doesn’t include money, sex, fame, and travel. Maybe, just like a construction worker or a Starbucks barista, my skills are best used in service to others.
The more deeply we dive into our own stories, the more we feel like we’re going through it alone. But I’m here to remind you that you’re not alone, even though we each have to do the work ourselves. The deeper we dive, the more beauty we can discover as well. No one else shares our unique experiences, and therefore no one else can show us the light at the end of the tunnels we dig; we can only share our stories and remind ourselves that we already have everything we need to find that light.
These are the things no one else can teach us.
We all have the unlimited power to shift our perspective, and with that, the unlimited power to change the way we feel about life. This isn’t a manual for fixing your life; I couldn’t write one for you even if I wanted to. I can only share how I learned from the experiences I had, and how they taught me to better my life. Through my sharing, I hope you think back on your moments of good, bad, and boring to find, discover, and create something of value from them. Many of those experiences weren’t pleasant, and you may not want to revisit them, but the discomfort, pain, and overall shitty feeling that came from those experiences is the price we all have to pay to gain that wisdom. In some circles, that wisdom is referred to as game.
Da Game Is to Be Sold, Not to Be Told
All the experiences we go through in life are our lessons, all the people we meet are our teachers. What we learn is what we earn from those experiences, and this book is here simply to help you see, discover, and create the silver lining that’s always been there so you don’t discard the unpleasant moments as things you want to forget. Everything we go through is important and puts us up on game to better ourselves and the way we feel moving forward. Wisdom can’t be told or taught by anyone else; only we can mine the jewels of wisdom ourselves. That’s what Snoop was getting at, and that’s what Albert Camus celebrated before him.
That invincible summer doesn’t require us to have certain experiences; it requires us only to open ourselves up to life in a certain way, to see things beyond what’s on the surface.
I can’t promise you “happily ever after,” and that’s not something you should expect or promise yourself either. I can, however, share my stories of figuring shit out on my own by changing the way I perceived things. I encourage you to use a new lens—one not of blind optimism but of empowered opportunism in which you recognize that you have the ability to turn any situation that appears to be shitty into something much sweeter. Once you’ve embraced that power, you won’t be as afraid to face new challenges and setbacks that life will undoubtedly present to you. Simply having a better attitude toward them will show you the sugar among any shit.
Enter
Summers seem shorter
Winters get longer
Friendships end with the seasons
And we won’t always welcome spring
Time stops standing still for us, and the happy-ever-afters never happen
It’s terrifying
Everyone I know and love will be dead
It’s comforting
Everyone I resent and hate will be dead
All ashes
How can we have something everlasting
In a world where nothing ever lasts
Everything comes to pass
Everything is temporary
Even us
How fortunate and unfortunate for us
Death is the only promise
It’s frustrating to know that the new outfit you just bought, the one that brings you so much excitement and confidence, is one day going to sit unloved at the back of your closet. When you get around to spring cleaning, you’ll look at it, embarrassed, and wonder, “Why did I buy that? What was I thinking?” Shit gets old very quickly; nothing stands the test of time anymore. Companies make stuff to break so we’ll buy the next generation of stuff, which will also break. This makes the world, and life, feel that much more temporary.
Mother Nature also created us with a form of built-in obsolescence: death. We have an expiration date, and that also makes the world, and life, feel that much more temporary. The longer we live, the more we experience death, in and around us. Many of my childhood heroes are dead, like my grandmother, Nani. I’ll never get to feel her leathery, wrinkly hands again. Growing up, absorbed in her cuddles, I thought she would be here forever. But she wasn’t, and as I stood in the hospital room staring at her lifeless body, I thought of my mother and father and how, if everything plays out as it should, I’ll be watching them pass away too one day.
Nothing lasts forever.
The fact that life is temporary—the happiness, the joy, the hope, the fear, the pain, the sorrow, the victories, the defeats—is the most comforting and terrifying fact of existence.
It always feels like the bad shit pauses at its worst moments, while all the good stuff crumbles into the everyday.
“Nothing lasts forever” sucks when we think of the good stuff, but it’s oddly comforting when we think of the bad. You’ve fought the urge to get up to pee during a movie, knowing the credits will eventually roll and you’ll be free to leave your seat without missing
