77 - Stop joking around

The picture that is my life is never pretty, but I've found out recently that I believe life is what you make it. If you view the world with a positive light, everything is better. Granted, my best friend is still a bit of an asshole, my parents are still not the best, and there are many times I find myself alone, but hey, I'm truly okay. The most important thing is that I'm okay, and that I'm happy with who I am, and when others put me down, I must brush it off my shoulder because I know I'm a good-hearted person deep inside.

I may not be donating thousands of dollars to charity, but at least I pay for my friends' drinks and taxi-rides home when they run out of cash. I may not lend my arm to the old lady who crosses the street, but I at least help drunk girls get back up on their feet when they're just about to pass out... And you know, I may not spend enough time with my family, but at least there are a lot of people who are around my age and have felt better after confiding in me, me who was able to talk to them instead of being preoccupied with my family.

And it's not like I'm not there for my parents and don't care about them at all anyway. God knows the three of us have been through a lot of shit together.

And as much as people like to say I'm the biggest gossip in the universe, I tell people things to make them understand a little bit more about other people because both parties are simply too shy, stubborn and/or insecure to get to understand each other. As much as people like to say they're so sick of me, and I'm so annoying, they always come back to me, to complain about their coworkers, their classmates, their boyfriends, their parents, their best friends, and most of all, themselves, and to share their thoughts, their feelings and their aspirations, and to share stories, to have me listen to them, to have me be there.

To be honest, I sometimes get tired of listening.

But I will always listen. I will always help people keep their chins up, give them something to look forward to, give them something to appreciate in life when everything seems so unappreciable. I don't care about my well-being. I don't care if you're using up my time, energy or money. I don't care if I don't sleep, and I don't care if there's an exam the next day, or if I want some time to rest or to be by myself. I don't care about me.

As much as they like to say I'm selfish, I truly believe they've actually just been looking in the mirror and did not like what they saw.

I'm not a bad person, and how dare you accuse me of being one sometimes, and then to cover it up by saying you were "just kidding". How dare you joke about my moral integrity, because all I ever am trying to be, every fucking minute of the day, is honest, generous, and forgiving.

I am a good person. And I am happy.

You should respect that as much as I respect you. You should stop being funny. The jokes are getting old.

60 - Life is like riding a bicycle.

You may have heard this quotation before. Albert Einstein once said, "Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving." I think it's sage advice, one of the best ones I've ever heard in my life.

I think about the people around me, in my school, outside of school, at home, in the UK, the US, Canada, Australia and the Philippines. It seems like everybody carries some grudge, some trauma, some burden. It's sad because all of this resentment, sadness and worry simply remain there unceasingly. People carry with them their deep, dark secrets for months, years and entire lifetimes. I find it interesting how every single little thing that you do can change the final outcome of your life. There are an infinite number of places I could be tomorrow, several billion people in this world I could meet this year, an insurmountable number of ways I could die at any point.

What astounds me is how one hug, from one person, at one particular time, in one specific place, can make you feel more loved than you ever have. I find it strange how one petty crime can cause your expulsion from school, how one careless mistake can land you in a juvenile prison, how one relationship with a boy can cause a girl several months of great distress, how one name can change your entire social life, how one insignificant argument can escalate to a divorce, how one book can change your life perspective, how one person's words can motivate you, and how one life well-lived can change millions of others. In a split second, your life could end if it had not been for one special circumstance, or one other person, or if it had been a second later. Life is absolutely crazy.

But you pick yourself up after heartbreak, after tragedy, after all the fretting. You shed your embarrassment, your anguish, your melancholy, and you focus on what you can do to turn things around, implement change, and make things better.

'Life is too short to be lived miserably' is the perfect quotation to epitomize this message. You can't wait for the clouds to subside, you can't expect too much from the Sun. If you want a brighter life, one that's more balanced, then that's your right and your responsibility. Keep your chin up and smile.