Guess what? If I never had my ideals and succumbed to people's version of cold reality, I wouldn't be having the liberty to work wherever I want while not having to answer a single phone-call while finding the person I want to spend the rest of my life with. I'll be working somewhere comfortable and would probably be with someone 'comfortable' as well.

This is another point of my life when I'm pulled into drawing strength from my inner-reserves again. This time around, the stakes are higher. I'll be lying if I tell you I am not paranoid nor insecure. Which is a contradiction because I believe that security is an illusion and therefore insecurity shouldn't exist. But try telling that to my human mind. ;p

People tell me that I am lucky or they wish they can be as gutsy as me. I go through the same paranoia process and indecision like anybody, in fact it may be more (ask my partner if you don't believe, I wake her up in the middle of the night all the time to *repeat* my paranoia to her all the time). What could be the difference is that I am not willing to live a mundane life. No matter how insecure, paranoid, down-in-the-dumps, upset, depressed, angry, in-confident, weak I can be, I am never willing to wake up, go to work, get paid, buy some stuff to comfort myself, grow old, get sick, be happy because I have money to treat my medical conditions, wait to die. Sorry, that sort of safe existence makes me not want to exist at all.

Plenty of times undesirable circumstances are there to push you out of your comfort zone for your necessary growth. I have spent the first half of the year fretting about the uncertainty I was about to face, but right now, I cannot help but feel totally grateful for it has given me the opportunity to go through a renewal process that was very much needed. One door closes and another opens.

I have a friend who keeps making ridiculous (even to me) decisions in his new venture but through his bold decision-making, his venture is experiencing tremendous growth. If you do not know him personally you may misunderstand his attitude on being borderline flippant. What most people do not know is that he has gone through a personal tragedy and it has allowed him to have very different perspectives while making decisions. When you have personally come across the face of death, what used to be important no longer becomes so and vice versa.

I have not experienced that sort of personal tragedy but have come close to it by being the creator of my own tragedy. I have been to that point where I have lost all love and enthusiasm for life. I was decaying.

Nothing can be worse than losing the desire to live, not even poverty or sickness. This period of healing has allowed me to recover my enthusiasm and that is very precious, the desire to look forward to another day. We can either be fearful or excited about the unknown, that is the beauty of our free will.

I choose to have faith, I keep having the choices presented to me and I still choose to have faith. I have faith that as long as I try my best and lead my life in the most meaningful manner, to the best of my capacity, the Universe will provide for me. It has never failed me so far, I have always been given what I have desired, as long as I was not afraid to take the plunge.

I do not know if I am deluding myself or if I am biting off more than I can chew, but who is to determine what are we truly capable of? It is only but ourselves who have limiting beliefs. How many of us in history had accomplished seemingly impossible feats precisely because of great ideals?

I have made the leap, and the height of that leap has increased since I last wrote, but I have always been an all or nothing person. It is either I do something with my best effort, or I don't do it, rather than trying to go the 'safe' route. What is the worst that can happen? That my partner end me end up having to sweep floors? That we can do, as long as we're in it together, united in the same direction, it doesn't matter if we really end up falling flat our faces. At the very least, we have tried our best.

My life has existed in cycles, whereby I swing between trying to listen to my heart and getting derided by my mind. Often the mind wins, because the mind is logical and rational. It convinces me in eloquent arguments while the heart just goes I don't know why but this is how I feel, so trust it anyway.

I attribute my depressive cycles to this, when the curve swings upwards it is usually because I am functioning well, trusting my intuition, following my heart. When it swings downwards the mind goes, there I told you so in an infinite loop. The mind mocks at the heart for being naive, the heart crumbles and breaks. I gradually lose the trust I have in myself, if any at all. My heart just wants to believe in the good, yet it gets repeatedly stepped upon because it wants to believe.

The past two decades, I have lost the ability to really, truly, trust myself. I want to trust everybody and everything but just not myself. Why would I trust myself when it seems like I have been the one making all the poor decisions rendering me in heart-breaking circumstances?

Perhaps I have never truly trusted myself. If I did, I would never have felt any fear, and even if things go wrong it wouldn't scare me, because I will always be there for myself, to pick myself up. But I don't trust myself to pick myself up. I would only envision myself being broken again, some part of me would die, and that process would be irreversible. I would never be whole again. I am weak, else why would I always feel so broken each time something goes wrong?

Somehow there is this tiny part of me that never dies. After all the tears, there is always this tiny part that wants to believe. I have no idea why. I have no idea why time and time again, I still remain hopeful. Why I repeatedly allow myself to be broken again and again, yet I still believe in ideals. In hope. In faith.

Is that the infinite part of my soul? Why do I believe in God (the non-religious version, thank you)? I cannot explain it in words, but there is this part of me that knows, that knowing cannot be refuted, it cannot disintegrate, it will always be there. It can be hidden or lost, but it will always be there. I think it is like a paradox. It is because it is so unexplainable, illogical, yet so true, thus the belief to begin with.

Our minds only wants to believe in the proven. My mind wants me to be the logical person I cannot be. I got depressed because I know I can never be the person my mind or society or even my loved ones want me to be.

That tiny voice in me has gotten louder in the past few years. Ironically, the more I fell, the louder it got. It keeps telling me, if only you have listened to me in the first place. The more I realised I cannot depend on outer reality, the more I drew strength from inwards. I started to see that I cannot ask for external motivation if I do not possess it internally. I cannot ask for people to believe in me when I don't even trust myself.

That tiny voice tells me to keep the faith. There are no walls of security that I can lean on, no calculated risks I can take, but it keeps telling to take that leap. That giant leap of faith.

Do I trust myself? After all those times that I have trusted and yet got broken? I realised I have never fully trusted myself, many times I have taken the step to trust my inner voice, only to sell out to the ever-persuasive mind. Eg. I took the leap to going solo because I trust my inner voice, but I ended up being persuaded by the fearful mind to take on projects that was not necessarily beneficial for me because I was insecure. Or those times that I mistakenly thought I was making decisions for the better, but only to realise now that I was trying to preserve my comfort zone. Being comfortable does not equate to being better.

Have you ever really analysed why you keep getting into undesirable situations? Or simply blame it on your own 'luck'? I was one of those who believed I was destined to live a wretched life, because I keep trying and yet I keep getting into 'unlucky' situations. I now have the benefit of hindsight. The 'unlucky' situations always have a reason. Eg. I was in a totally monotonous job for six months that did nothing for my portfolio, but it was there that I met the friend who would play such a vital role in my growth in the past decade.

So, I am gonna take a giant leap of faith. I am going to listen to that tiny but growing voice. I may fall flat on my face but I will gain the experience of trying, rather than to live with another 'what if' in my life.

I cannot take that lying down and that is perhaps the strength I possess. I am tired of living with the constant fear of lack. From now on, I just want to live in a life that is full of abundance.

If one attends to the problems of humanity and commits oneself to solving them, the universe will care for that person the same way it cares for a flower or a bird. So he committed himself to working on the bigger tasks of the world on the absolute faith that the universe’s integrity will pay him back. His philosophy was that changing the world does not occur through preaching or social reforms, but through artifacts that solve the existing challenges of humanity.

From: Every man dies, but not every man lives