In these moments we call our life we are left with choices. These choices can shape our reality. We can choose to continue a harmful cycle of doubt and disbelief or to break free and create new thoughts and habits. I met with some old friends yesterday and during our conversation they tried to convince me that I should trim my beard – alter my appearance because they don’t find how I look to be attractive. Now I’m not trying to date either of these women (although I have pondered the notion) so what does it matter if they don’t find how I prefer to groom myself attractive? At another point during our chat we got onto the topic of my love life, which is pretty dormant To be completely honest and I ended up going back into an old cycle of doubt and hopeless thinking. I told them “we all know I won’t be having a relationship anytime soon” and I entered into a state of depressive-self loathing. I’m not sure why I said it as I haven’t thought that way in a while. I had been doing good, or so I thought. Perhaps a deeper look into myself and I might realize that I still somewhat believe this. That I believe that I am not worthy of love and that there isn’t someone out there who was design for me to love. But what is love? Some might say it’s the absence of judgement. If you judge others or yourself you are not loving them. While this is true it’s merely a scratch on the surface. In one of Jack Johnson’s songs he says “we are specks of love directionless” and I think this notion goes deeper than that. To come into this form and reality your parents did something that we call making love. Out of this love you were created. Because of this you are love in physical form. But I’m getting off topic as I am known to do so I will continue this thought at another time. After my friends left I’ve been thinking about what they said and I got upset. Angry almost. I thought of telling them off, being like “fuck you and your view of reality” but what good would this do? Perhaps this place that I found within my self is where I need to work on, an area I need to grow in. What is it that makes me believe that I won’t find someone out there who can love me and that I can love in return? Is it my own self doubt left unattended to for so long that it became truth to me? Did I tell myself lies for so long that I began to take them as true? Was seeing old friends from a time when I was nothing but hopelessly stuck in a thought cycle of fear and insecurity, and am I still acting as if I am that person? So much has happened in the years since high school. I have grown and changed – sometimes for the better sometimes not so. Perhaps I laid judgment upon myself and in that moment I wasn’t showing myself love. If I want to find love within this world I have to be love. To be the light. To love myself more and more. To have hope in what may be and to love what is.