You’ve got to, like, let it all go man. All of that negativity, the hateful feelings and bitter resentments, just – ffwhssshhh! – open your hands up and let them fly away. Get it? Like that was the sound of them flying away, like, if you can imagine they could fly. Because they don’t want to hold on to you, no, you’re the one holding on to them. Does that make sense?

Great. Because I like to tell people that we’re all on a journey. It’s a long journey, a really difficult one. But at the same time, it’s so simple. Because it’s not about the destination, right, it’s about the journey. Have you ever heard that before? I just heard it the other day, and it makes so much sense. Because, right? The journey.

And at the end of the journey, there’s a path. And that’s the path that we’re all striving for. I think I’m already on that path. Done with the journey, on to the path. There’s a spot for all of us on that path, toward wellness, and peace of mind, and peace. It’s really like a sea. The pathway is an endless ocean of opportunities for calm and reflection and self-betterment.

I hope I’m explaining myself clearly, although, nobody can really explain it. No, you’ve got to, like, live it. Maybe I can use the power of example to better tell you what I’m talking about. OK, when I was in the third grade, it was pizza day, right, and everyone was sitting at that long cafeteria table, and I don’t know how it got started, but all of us started chanting in unison, “We want pizza! We want pizza!”

It was really funny, except, the principal happened to be there, and she didn’t think it was funny at all. She screamed at us all to, “Stop that right this second!” before randomly grabbing me and two other boys and sending us to her office where she yelled at us for like half an hour, about how we were acting like animals, that we should have been ashamed of ourselves.

And I just have to like, let that go man, because that’s poison, right, that shit is toxic. I can’t be a part of that. No, I have to be compassionate and stuff. If this lady wanted to yell at me when I was in the third grade, even though the whole class was doing it, even though it was only me and two boys that got yelled at and not any girls, even though it was so totally obviously unfair the way we got punished, and missed the fresh pizza, that by the time we got to go back down to the cafeteria, everybody else was already outside at recess, and we had to sit there and eat the leftover, cold, gross, burnt slices that nobody else wanted, all I’m saying is, whatever man, that’s in the past, and I can’t be the guy that lives in the past. No, I have to be the guy that lives through the past, straight into the future, which is the present, right now.

Right? Because I’m better than that. And who knows? Maybe she was going through her own nonsense. I can’t tell, I can’t get into anybody else’s head, and I shouldn’t make stuff up. But like, maybe she had a really bad secret gambling problem. Maybe you couldn’t tell just by looking at her, but maybe she went to these seedy underground poker clubs every night, just wasting all of her time and money, always betting on the flop, chasing the river every hand. Who knows, right? And then she comes to work and the sight of a bunch of third graders, sitting there excited for their pizza, it just made her enraged, like how is this fair? That they get to be innocent little kids, all super happy about lunch, and I’m here just barely piecing together this broken shell of an adult life?

And that’s just one potential scenario. Maybe she killed somebody years ago and got away with it. I don’t know. Like I said, you shouldn’t waste any time making stuff up in your head. Who has time for that? Nobody. You’ve got to live in the now. I’m over it, all right? And that was just one example anyway. You’ve got to reach out and grab that inner now. Right, you’ve got to live in that inner now. Does that make sense? Because it’s so simple. A journey to an ocean pathway of peace and serenity. Fwwwhhissssh!