CLXXV

Life doesn’t work the way people lead you to believe. It’s not always an upward slope. Sometimes there are downfalls. Sometimes there are pitfalls. Sometimes there are plummets back to the bottom where you started. Sometimes you lose your foothold. Sometimes you forget the direction you were heading in. Sometimes you lose the battle and the war. That’s how it is. 

CXVII

In life there are no hand outs. You get to high places when you do hard work. Even when it looks like they took a shortcut, they didn't, even when it seems that they had a free ride, they didn't, and even when they made it all look so easy, it wasn't. Learning this is one of the greatest let downs and biggest encouragements you can find. That life can look easy and be hard all at once, do you get that? Bums on seats, feet on pavement, pens on paper, fingers on the pulse. No one gets to be where they are without positioning and purpose. So why would you? And that one time it seems as if someone's beaten the system? Take stock of all the lessons you've learnt and ask yourself, would you want to?

XCII

A lifetime is barely enough.

And yet it’s all we’ve got.

There’s no countdown clock for life – I like that.

What good would it do if there were?

Who would want to run faster, and know better, and feel more than you should?

I run pretty fast as it is.

There are things I don’t know and they teach me something. Another kind of knowing.

Don’t get me started on feelings.

Life is precious, yes.

Life is mysterious, yes.

Unpredictable, yes. Painful, yes. Heady, yes.

A lifetime is barely enough. But it’s all we’ve got.

Be happy with your lot. And live your life.

[Imgaes: Louise Dahl-Wolfe for Harpers Bazaar, 1946]

LXXXVI

As if what I do is more important than who I am. I guess for some people it's the same thing.
You are and you do. You can and you won't. You do and you don't. Sing louder, they might just hear you scream.

[Image: i-D Magazine]

LXXIV

Life doesn’t work the way people lead you to believe. It’s not always an upward slope. Sometimes there are downfalls. Sometimes there are pitfalls. Sometimes there are plummets back to the bottom where you started. Sometimes you lose your foothold. Sometimes you forget the direction you were heading in. Sometimes you lose the war. That’s how it is. 

But only sometimes. 

And sometimes, you win. 

[Images by Min Nomchong via Summersite]

LII

To a life full of wonder. To second chances and small beginnings. To do or die for love and to heads held high. To the untold stories and the unwhispered words. To the moments of silence and of solitude. To the hard yards and the break-neck-speed-of-things moments. To the hanging on and the sticking through. To friendship and to family and most of all - to love. 

To these things I say, thank you. 

XXIX

Dear self - live the dream.

Hey, guess what, s***'s happening.

Hey, guess what, this is real life. Sometimes you don’t really consciously properly discerningly live in it. But this is it, and you’re a part of it.

It’s the real world now, where you have to make decisions, and have direction and vision, and know where you’re going, at least for the most part. You’re gonna make money and save money and spend money and save again and try to get ahead in the money game.

Hint: no one ever gets ahead in the money game.

Welcome to the real world, where sure, bad things happen. But when good things happen, they’re filled with enough… well, goodness… to last you all the way through the bad. Hopefully. That’s the dream.

And you’ve got the dream. You’re living in it! Don’t think just because every now and then you need to make some hard decisions and overcome some things, and maybe every now and then someone rubs you up the wrong way, or vice versa – don’t think that means your not living the dream. Because you are. And you’ll do well not to forget it.

This is called life. You’re a traveller passing through, and when you’re travelling its about living life to the full in every moment. So go on. Do that. And see what come out of it.

Live that dream. Even if you don’t know what it is quite yet… live it until you realise what you’re living.