At 26, I am still looking for myself. Which is fabulous because I still know myself: that I ‘m not perfect, that I’m learning about myself, that I have developed keen self-awareness, and that I know I will be accepting myself, not being too hard on myself, and that I am embracing my own imperfection.

I am beginning to have my taste in life. I am developing myself. I am growing. I learn to know what I desire vs. what I want. I know what I need vs. what I must have. I know the only thing good in this life is to keep on practicing. Life is like meditation. It starts out hard but if you keep on doing it. Patiently, and you will master it. I will master it.

Let this be once in life that I say and will never again: that I laugh at my stupidity, my falters, my imperfection. That I laugh at my own ignorance, my own egocentric, my own pride. Let me let go of my suicidal, the one that I’ve been practicing by poisoning myself with thoughts that I am better than others, that I think I’m “all that” and that I’m perfect. Let me homicide and murder the self-center, being the criticizer, being defensive. I thought I know me. But not at all. Let go of opinion. It is an old habit.

Just as a snake sheds its skin, we must shed our past over and over and over again.

One of my falters as being a human is that I tend to live in the past. I tend to kill myself over my imperfection, the things that I failed to do, failed to live up to, failed to achieve. I realized that I’m not growing but rather dying. Every morning, the chatter monkey mind takes over me. I care too much. I care too little. I don’t care at all.

I care too much about what others think about me, the unimportant people. I care too little about what I think of myself and what my loved one do. I don’t care at all by my future, my goals, my dreams. Along the line of being a 18 to 26, I have lost track of focus, of direction. The question in life is not “How did one get lost?” but it is “How can one get back on track?” The trick is: stay calm, breath, and plan your course of action–and take action. Let the past be the past. So what you screwed up? why beating yourself about it over and over and over again? Sure you’ll learn from your mistake but remember to keep moving forward. Find your way back. Take care of your loved ones. Take care of yourself. Avoid the company of deluded people when you can. When you cannot, keep your own counsel. Blessing come from care, troubles from carelessness. If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.

Life is hard. How can we be anything but kind?