Personal Declaration

This year,
  • I will try, even when afraid. 
  • I will accept, and thereby improve from, my failures and embarrassments - minor or major.
  • I will work, even when I don't feel like it.
  • Much better: I will see the bigger picture and learn to ignore short-term whimsies; I will learn that just because I don't want to do it now, it doesn't mean doing it now won't be better for me in the long-run.
  • I will remember that the past is gone, the future is a projection, a product of the imagination, and that the present reigns supreme.
  • I will let nothing bring me to breaking point. Every stumble will propel me further.
  • I will experiment with being more truthful about small things, like emotions, without becoming frail.
  • I will find happiness, but not as a heavenly end-goal; I will look at it more like an attribute of things; I will find happiness in the sun, in the moon, in reading, in writing, in girls, in caffeine and alcohol, in having the money to live comfortably and attend a good university, in films, and a variety of other things in life. I will remember that happiness, like misfortune, crops up every now and again and is not some celestial end-state. I will remember that happiness, better than misfortune, can be sought and constructed, just as a literature student seeks meaning in a text; whereas misfortune silently sneaks up on you like an armed man.
  • I will stop having negative opinions about myself (lest they be in jest). I will have only positive, neutral, or opportunistic opinions about myself. If something about myself upsets me and I have no opportunity or will to improve it, I will learn to become neutral about it.

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