you cannot run away from a weakness; you must sometimes fight it out or perish. and if that be so, why not now, and where you stand?

-robert louis stevenson

the above is one of the author's favorite quotes of all time. in the face of overwhelming adversity, when it feels like the weight of the world is on your shoulders, when everything's threatening to fall on top of you like a house of cards, leaving you buried under fathomless depths of rubble, and when it seems like there's nothing left to do but to quit, gather yourself together, and make an unwavering stand. give it your all. at the very least, you'll go down fighting and with no regrets because you did your best. if you make it through however, a hard won victory always tastes very, very sweet. but either way, you are better off in some sense, because the lessons learned from adversity are priceless.

why do we fall down? so we can learn to pick ourselves up.

-thomas wayne, from batman begins

falling is never the end. life has an infinitesimal number of possibilities such that if one pathway doesn't take us to where we want to go, there is always another. but it should never be an option to choose the path of least resistance by virtue of its simplicity alone. we fall, we get up, and learn from our mistakes and refrain from making the same ones in the future. the lessons might be painful, but their importance can never be undermined.

if you weren't given the gift you can't get the gift so the best you can do – if your goal is important – is work as hard as you possibly can, pay attention every hour of every day and then maybe, maybe if you've done enough and been smart enough you'll emerge from the muck of mediocrity to shine a bit brighter than you shone before.

-mark twight

thus, even if it seems as if the odds are stacked high against you, face it with all the grit and resolve you have, and more. destroy those inhibitions and weaknesses that hold you back, push yourself as far as you can, further than you've ever been, and take on anything that stands in your way.

and hey you, if you're reading this from there,

一緒にがんばりましょうね。

logged at 12:32 AM

Saturday, January 12, 2008

it’s something that probably applies to a large number of people. we think we understand the feelings of someone, and we say things or act in a manner in which we think is right. perhaps those actions and words are well-intentioned, but like the author has learned time and again from self made mistakes, never to be too presumptuous. it’s never as easy as we think to truly and fully understand how someone else feels about something, unless we have had a similar experience. even then, we still have to realize that everyone’s view of the world is unique, and someone else’s perception of the world is probably different from our own.

perhaps it is a monumental, maybe even impossible task to entirely understand another person, no matter how close to us they may be. but despite all of that, one of the best things that we could probably do is to be willing to listen, and to do our best to understand without being judgmental. we are only human: most of us don’t like to be judged, yet it seems so easy to judge others. we may not show it, but somewhere in our minds, we inevitably tend to form some preconceived perception based on our personal normative opinions.

yet, however hard it may be to refrain from making personal judgments, the most important thing would probably be to just do the best we can, to be a friend, a listener, someone who is by the other person’s side when they need it.

logged at 4:17 AM