I’m tired. So I’m just gonna write.

Zero thought process. Just open channel flowing, blowing in the wind is this expression of my soul. I let the flow have me. Like a log downstream I am being washed towards the ocean. The notion that this life is temporary makes me take a deep breath, and feel deeply. This gift I’ve been given, called life.

I acknowledge the desire to run from difficulty. It is so real. It is a beautiful experience when the willingness to remain leads to understanding. I am grateful for patience. For acceptance. For humility.

I am grateful for the opportunity to work. I have been earning more. Being offered more. I am receiving praise for my work, which feels nice. To be honest. I try not to let it get to my head. I am able to take praise and blame without too much of a visible reaction. I think, obviously, there is some kind of reaction – I am human. But for the most part it is private. Even my emotional outbursts can seem pretty tame.

I am still happy with myself. As I mentioned, working has helped. Good conversation helps. Rest and friendship and sunshine helps. Juice helps. Water helps. Deep breathing helps.

Friendship…jeeze. If you’re reading this you are likely a beloved friend of mine. Thank you. Thank you for showing up. Thank you for caring. For seeing me as I am, and accepting me. None of us are perfect. But we listen to each other. We bounce back. We see each others beauty.

Beauty pa-tooty. I hope that rings in your head as it does in mind. I let the alliteration move me along, strong in the bonds of creative expression. I let the words flow so I might know what exists inside. Passion and pain becoming the same understanding that which binds the whole of my human experience together.

I smile in the sunshine. I take a cold shower and push myself to breath through it. One might say, ‘why subject yourself to such torture? Don’t you love hot showers? Then take a hot, long shower!’ … maybe. But not right now. Right now I push further for the sake of acclimating to a new norm. A normal which has great mental toughness. Because that is something that I value. This feels like a major realization! Like the first in the 41 days of writing. Ha ha. It sounds so simple, but here it is:

At an axiomatic level, I value mental toughness. The ability to take in information without being broken by it. The ability to withstand difficulties. I value discipline because it allows me to be a strong human being and achieve more. I don’t expect anyone else to take on this ideal if they do not want to. This is purely personal. I am not, right now, so obtuse so as to suggest that the way I see the world is the ‘right’ or only way to see the world. But I can own that mental toughness is something that is very important to me. And that is why I push myself. That is why I work out. That is why I meditate. That is why I take cold showers. That is why I write for 66 days straight. Perhaps that not entirely true. The reasons I do these things are not only for mental toughness, but that does play a part in it.

I use the word axiomatic because I believe it to be something fundamentally true to who I am that does not require any defending. It is just true, for me.

That I am unearthing my core values is very important. It seems like the most important thing in understanding my position in the world. It is from where I build my platform. Where I discover my principles. I think I just outlined a few of them.

This feels like a win. I set out to understand my vocation. Perhaps it has to do with developing a mental toughness.

I wonder what that means for sensitivity? I often see how my insensitivity makes it hard to empathize with people. It is possible that my ‘toughness’ is only entrenching me into greater insensitivity. But I do not think that is necessarily true.

I do think that I can be tough, but also compassionate. I can use my strength to be able to really hear and listen and understand people, without moving from my own center. It is possible that my core strength is actually necessary to support those who are less stable. Yes, I like that. Let’s go with that instead.

I look forward to tomorrow.