We Are Who We Choose To Be

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go."

- T.S. Elliot

Every day I see people. People whose shoulders are slumped, eyes dulled. Trapped in a hurricane of excuses; whipped by fierce winds of denial, of self-justification, procrastination. They are slowly dying to a thousand tiny wounds born from corners they have cut, lies they have told. Their hopes lay with the future, the lives the want to live will start tomorrow. Or so they tell themselves... 

They are paralyzed from their past failures, existing as hollow shells of what they could be. They occasionally make pathetic attempts to change their lifestyle, attempts whose true purpose is to soothe a guilty conscience. Don't live that way, don't be that asshole. Keep pushing. Break the cycle. Make people look to you, an example of what one can accomplish by refusing to quit. Become a fucking monument to the power of human will.

Every day I see people, and I see their vast untapped potential. Potential being tragically squandered on a daily basis. We are who we choose to be.

Choose to be great.

"All I Do Is Win, Win, Win" -- The Illusion Of Control

What happens when a building's foundation crumbles, when it all comes tumbling down? What happens when a person loses that which is most dear to them? The answer is not the ominous monster that it's made out to be. Things simply begin anew. Buildings can be rebuilt and hearts can be reforged - it happens all the time.

We are an incredibly resilient species. Despite our lack of obvious physical defenses (retractable claws, poison venom, night vision, various other badassery, etc) we have survived. Not only against mother nature but against each other as well. We are infused with a raw tenacity that emboldens us to continue standing, defiant to defeat.

But all things must, and will, come to pass. We will eventually stumble, and fall. Far too many seem to mark this as the end, and while that may be true, it is also the beginning. For the most incredible thing is not in our greatest moment of strength, but rather in our most debilitating moment of weakness. When all is lost, we make the choice to start over and try again.

Success and failure are two faces belonging to the same entity, part of the same cycle. I see so many who believe these things act as separate individuals; they do not. They cannot exist without each other and part of obtaining one is acknowledging/accepting the presence of the other. Do not run from loss, and do not dwell in gain.

So know that things will always balance themselves out, always return to equilibrium. The next time you are up, do not fight the inevitable descent. Embrace it as a part of your next rising. The next time you are down, look up and know that you soar again.

Perhaps sooner than you think.

Gotta Know When To Hold Em' And When To Fold Em'

Posted to Facebook on March 12th, 2010.

I'd like start by quoting a friend of mine.

"Sometimes... sometimes I find problems. Other times... other times problems find me."

Though that quote was not the inspiration for this comic, I now realize it fits alongside quite well. This comic, like many others, was drawn in the tumultuous wake of heartbreak. It attempts to describe my feelings of helplessness cast in a more humorous light. I used to turn everything into a joke and take nothing seriously. I used to believe that the best way of dealing with an issue was to find the comedy in it. This comic was a sort of throwback to that behavior.

But maybe it's not such a bad idea. Every once in a while life will throw you a curveball, the kind that you're completely unprepared for. You're gonna strike out, and you're gonna strike out hard. It's something I feel a person must simply accept instead of struggle fruitlessly against. That's the lesson I learned then and have had to keep relearning since.

For a while I tried so hard to actively forget everything that was causing me pain, shut it out through sheer force of will. I was spinning my tires in an uphill battle on an icy slope; the factors of the situation were simply against me. It took a lot of sliding and lost ground to see that it simply wasn't worth the effort, I needed to just relax and wait this storm out.

I suppose that's the final word, which is to calm down and accept things as they are. While it may be on a clock, life is certainly not a race. Do things at your own pace and forget everyone else.