be yourself.

Be yourself. Don't give up. Make it happen. You can do it.

Everyone has a phrase. Something they repeat to themselves in the night, when they feel their world is crashing in on them. Does it make it better? Does it really give anyone the courage to wake up the morning after they breakdown and face everyone? As for myself, I too often fall asleep wondering what I've done wrong. Where I got turned around. How I got to where I am. Perhaps, just perhaps, if I stopped wondering what happened, and started looking towards what is going to happen, I would be less anxious about the past. The past is in the past. Don't look back—only look forward. You can't do anything about what is finished, but you can affect what is yet to come.

I have made mistakes in my life. I have held on when I should have let go, I have let go when I should have held on for dear life, I have stopped when I should have run with everything I had, I have run when I should have stopped and looked about, I have turned around when I should have kept straight, and I have kept going in one direction when I should have realized I needed to go back where I came from.

Do I make anything different by dwelling on what I have already done in my life, or is it all just passing nostalgia, holding me back from where I could still go? If I keep my mind and heart somewhere they do not belong, it prevents them from going somewhere else. I am sure there is something more for me in this world than a reminder of what I did wrong and what I may have incidentally done right. Go left? Right. Correct. Yes. I mean, yes. Go left. Do it, run with it all you have. You'll find your way. You'll know what you should be, where you should be, who you should be if you just keep going. If you stand still and watch the world spin around you, watch the people moving so fast, running from one place to the next, going from one life to another, and let it all pass you by, you'll never know. If you only watch others live their lives, how are you to live your own? I have spent my entire life watching other people live, and never living for myself. Living is something only you can do. No one can do it for you. You are responsible for your own decisions, for your own actions. You must make your own choices and face your own consequences. I am a people-watcher. I watch people. I notice the man at the bus stop, I know the name of the woman in the grocery store. I frequent the same many places a great many times.

Where is the line between living your own life and living living to watch others live theirs?