It’s all ebb and flow—all of it: the way your heart beats, the way you love, the days you have, the coffee you make. It’s never the same, and it’s always getting better, or it’s getting worse, but it’s never the same. If you must keep anything in mind, it’s this; you must remember this. Scribble it on a piece of paper and lock it in a wooden box hidden deep in your heart: it is never the same. I will never feel the same way I am feeling about everything again. It will always be a smidge higher or a smidge lower, and that will be just about it. In statistics, we often say how a number alone is useless, that unless you can compare it with something, it is neither high nor low. It is how it is with your heart, too. Everything that you feel right now will either be higher or lower in comparison to something. All life is but a comparison to either what was before or what we can imagine, both of which are not absolutes, no matter how sure we are of them. The things that have happened before are not accurate yardsticks, and what you can imagine will always be finite to your lived experience. Life does not pay heed to your history, nor does it care for your powers of imagination. It unfolds as it wants, flows where it wants, and the only thing in your purview is to go with it.
It takes some of us twenty-five years to learn this; for some, it takes their lives, but you cannot compare it with each other. You learn it when you learn it; it’s never too early or too late. It’s never on time, either. It’s only there one day. Whatever you do with it is up to you, but it’s never too early or too late. That much is set in stone, and that much is all you need to go forth, and that is all I can say to you. That is all anyone can say to anyone. What they must do with it is up to them in the end. What we do with anything is up to us, but the trick is to keep doing something. It may ebb and flow, but you must scramble and do something. You must keep doing something. That’s how you stay afloat. When you stay afloat long enough, you’ll know it’s never the same, that it’s always getting better or it’s getting worse, but it’s always going; it’s always going.