this one's for nat

It hurts to look back and I have to admit I'm scared to look ahead, but I'm so content with where I am right now. We will invent new lullabies, new songs, new acts of love. We will cry over things we used to laugh and our new wisdom will bring tears to eyes. And in the end, the tectonic layers of our lives will rest so tightly on top of one another that we will always come up against earlier events in later ones. Not as matter that has been fully formed and pushed aside, but absolutely present and alive.

There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt. And although certainty is ridiculous, doubt separates people... A poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations.. a thorn that irritates and hurts. It makes us lose the good we might have won by fearing to attempt. So with that I propose that life is to be lived, and you don't do that by sitting around wondering about yourself. Instead, try living one day without any unhealthy thoughts. It will inevitably be very difficult, yes, but try again until it becomes habitual, and life will move in the direction of becoming healthy, vital, and alive. You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience by which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I've lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive... the passion and pain and laughter and tears... and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. I honestly don't believe that people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.

Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. Remember that it is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is snot effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed, who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.