Control Your Version

There are people you should have walked away from. When people walk away from you, it's because they gave up. Trying isn't the problem, quitting is. It is because they don't deserve you in their lives. It is because...

"The unreal is more powerful than the real. Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because its only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on. If you can change the way people think. The way they see themselves. The way they see the world. You can change the way people live their lives. That's the only lasting thing you can create."
-Chuck Palahniuk

I'm not saying that you can't become someone else in the future, but who you are now has everything to do with the people who have been in your life and helped you become the person you are. Completely abandoning the people that loved you and were there for you doesn't make you strong. It makes you weak. It means you gave up the challenge. That you cared about yourself more than you did them. That the only thing that you care about is you is you. Fighting for the things you believe in and care about isn't something to be criticized or looked down upon, it's something to be respected and appreciated. People who gave up, who quit, never got anywhere. It was the people who were persistent, who wouldn't take no for an answer, that have changed the world. There is a difference between accepting something is over and fighting for something you believe isn't. I believe in goodbye, but I don't believe in shutting people out of my life who have influenced it positively and have done nothing to deserve not being in my life. If you love something, love it with all you have. Don't hold back. Don't guard yourself from feelings that you are afraid of having or showing. If you have something in the past that didn't work out the way you wanted to, don't let it affect your future. Learn from it, but never forget it. Sure, you can't make everyone feel the way you do about them. I'm very aware of that, but being persecuted for trying is almost like saying you shouldn't ever try in a relationship (rather it be with someone of the opposite sex, your family, even spiritually). And that just isn't how things work. Relationships (all of them) take work. Take effort. Take commitment. Take courage. Take patience. Take time.

"Hypocrisy and distortion are passing currents under the name of religion"
-Gandhi

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“People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that's bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they're afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they're wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio."
-Jim Morrison

"You realize that our mistrust of the future makes it hard to give up the past."
-Chuck Palahniuk

It's not always about moving on, or letting go, or finding peace. It's about understanding what is real. It's about figuring out not only who you are, but who you were, and most importantly... who you want to be. It's about making realistic decisions about YOUR life, and not letting outside influences affect who YOU are as a person. Sure I'm a realist, and even most times skeptical about a lot of things, but it is better than being an idealistic hypocrite with no grasp of who I am or what I want. People get lost trying to find themselves, everyday people are making hypocrites out of themselves by pretending to be people they aren't, or trying to follow some movement or fad because other people are encouraging them to. Life is a journey, an individual, unique adventure that should be different with everyone.

"In a world where billions believe their deity conceived a mortal child with a virgin human, it's stunning how little imagination most people display. "
-Chuck Palahniuk

Sure there are religions out there, and I completely respect what most of these things are trying to preach, but they are meant to teach us morals, right from wrong, not a detailed instruction on how to live your life. It's not about being "religious", it's about being spiritual. Finding your own way, your own "godliness" on Earth. People shouldn't be afraid of going to Hell, they should want to find their own calm and tranquility while still on Earth. Scare tactics in religion are what have caused most of the wars in human history. Why can't people understand that whatever it was that caused us to be here, didn't want us to all be alike. How else do you explain so much diversity in the universe. The Bible was written by men, and should be used as a guide, not a rulebook. Otherwise we'd still be smearing lambs blood over our doors during the passover.

"No matter how careful you are, there's going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn't experience it all. There's that fallen heart feeling that you rushed right through the moments where you should've been paying attention. Well, get used to that feeling. That's how your whole life will feel some day. This is all practice."
-Chuck Palahniuk