When I started this journal, I intended to make it a space for meditations, revelations, and a general signification of love for other people with whom I'm not in very good contact with on a daily basis. In the past few months, that's gone by the wayside and my journal entries aren't very meditative at all, are they? That's ok. But I'm starting to feel meditative again, so here are a few things I've learned because of the last few years of my life. I know, I know: they sound hokey and like something you'd find in affirmative literature, but that's only because the findings have been divorced from the details which provoked me to even discover what I think about some of these things. In any case, here they are:

1. I know now not to say or do anything, to commit to action, before knowing what the names of my feelings are and why I'm having them.

2. I know now to keep my own counsel, to trust my own instincts, and not to ask for the advice of too many people, except a few. Other people's ideas will only serve to distract me, in some cases. I don't want to find out I've messed up following someone else's idea of how to live life.

3. I know that however many good qualities a relationship between two people may exhibit, the relationship must exist for its own sake, and not for the sake of one of the partners needing a relationship to feel completed. With that in a relationship's foundation, it will not be able to grow in freedom.

4. I know I must be content with being alone.

5. I know I must think of myself now, not only for others. To ignore the self, even in charity, will only cause it to rebel and make demands later.

6. I know that love needn't be proved over and over. It will prove itself daily without any prompting.

More, lots more. But there are a few things I had to practically break my neck to figure out. (And some people think I'm intelligent. Why? I have no clue.)