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I need to be way more grateful for the life I have right now.

I need to be more grateful for the fact that I'm walking aimlessly, drinking matcha that I did NOT make, while the magical sun brings warmth and glow to my skin, all while exploring a new city… just because I can.

Externally, I am experiencing new faces, experiences, and places, but internally, my mind is a cluster f**ked mess obsessed with all the things WRONG with me.

You could say I am a bit self-obsessed right now, and not in the cool, fun way where I’m living like Paris Hilton expecting people to kiss my polished toes and shine crystal rings.

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We too often forget that alcohol is poison. One dose of poison usually won’t pose as lethal, but no honest man can take divy the safe amount, but that little mishap often creates some of the most amazing moments. And in that time of blurry nights or closer connections, we all feel invincible — spectacular. We feel calm and invigorated. We feel happy and sad. We feel realised and mysterious. When we push past the recommended dose of poison, two things are always true at once.

But then we wake up. Our heads throb to the point where sound and light — the drugs of the night — become demonic and startling. The brilliant ideas we had fade, and the goals we made days before consuming poison are nothing more than a dream. Our house plant is now miraculously dead (even though it was dying before), the food in the fridge is expired (it’s not, but there is nothing appetising), and everything said and done to the person you finally had the courage to talk to… well you probably said something really stupid so just give up now.

Nothing is good, and everything sucks, and we promise to never try that poison again!

It’s funny how the small delights of daily life fade from a drop (or few) of poison.

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I must make note that this piece is not about drinking culture, regrets, and all that sh*t. However, while I was hungover in the bustling city of New York, the joy of everyone around my mopey ass (I told you I’d make one out of myself) forced me to reconsider how grateful I am to even be hungover in the bustling city of New York.

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Our minds are so much more powerful than we give them credit for.

We can convince ourselves we are going to win the lottery just the same as we can convince ourselves we will never win a scratch ticket.

We can walk across fire without flinching, and with those same feet, we can cry over a splinter from an old floorboard.

We can start the morning on our knees, praying to a higher power, just as we can end the day on our knees, begging for forgiveness.

Two things can be true at once, the same as three, four, five, and six things can be true at once. The question is not how many truths can live in one moment, but how many truths can live in one reality — your own reality.

How do we let our emotions create our feelings, which manifest in our thoughts, and create our reality, impact how we live?

It is so much easier said than done. To quiet the mind, to sit in silence and allow our emotions to pass over like waves, our feelings to flow in and out like the tide, and our thoughts to come and go like passing clouds.

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I was sitting on the train coming back from my New York (in a minute) adventure, and I'd had amazing chicken nuggets for dinner, and I remembered I had chocolate babka bread in my bag. I wasn't hungry — I was actually quite stuffed — but something in me said to eat all of it anyway, because even if I feel like shit afterwards, it’s not like I am living my real life right? I mean, I am unemployed, living off of my last dimes from my old job while simultaneously spending my parents hard-earned coins… only to feel immense guilt every swipe of their card… but I do it anyway.

And guess what? That guilt I feel for each unearned bill that gets stripped from my parents’, well, it’s still there even after I downed an entire loaf of babka. And yes, partially because I binged and practically made myself sick, but evermore so, it is my b&w thinking of life. It’s not that I doubt myself in my actions or endeavors, it’s that I cannot commit to myself in the off-seasoned moments.

I didn’t trust myself to take my time. 

I feel like shit. I keep ruining the moment and not thinking about my future self and how I want to feel, all because I’m waiting for my life to start back up.

But life doesn’t just happen.

So me walking, holding a matcha which I did NOT make, is real life.

Those job applications I filled out last week hold the same significance regardless of the outcome.

Life is meant to be experienced, living is the ability to choose how to experience, and gratitude is the meaning we give to those experiences.

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I woke up this morning nauseous from all the babka I ate, but instead of dwelling on it — because there's nothing I can do about it now — I made like Dory, and kept swimming.

Life is best when not spent dwelling in the dark realities we build in our minds. Remember, multiple things can be true at once.

Reality is built upon our own sensory inputs, past memories, and cultural concepts. Our visual, auditory, and emotional reality is entirely our own.

Thus, reinstating the paradigm that two things can be true at once, the same as three, four, five, and six things can be true at once.

Being grateful I have this life. Being grateful I can go to the beach today. Being grateful I can apply for jobs. There are so many things to be grateful for.

Even walking around Boston. I am grateful to be here; I can't wait to come back at some stage of my life. But the stage of my life right now is yearning for consistency in the environment, not a one-month period of this August New England bliss — a fever dream.

So often we forget that it is possible to hold space for things that are not in this current moment.

I need that external consistency to be able to find real change and evolution. And that's okay.

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The notion still stands,

However many truths live in one reality, so it goes — but gratitude is the one that can live in all.