its been difficult. i dont feel im alone in this assessment, i have heard from my colleagues and my friends countless stories to back this up, the times are harder. it seems that the expansion of the economy and the roll of good times might be coming to an end. the thing about the start and the stop of things is that you are not sure what point you are on in the story. whether the drops of rain you feel is the beginning or end of a long storm. is the storm brewing or are we about to enter into a stretch of sunshine?

bad things happen, we get sick, we lose things. suffering is part of the dna of life, without it we would have to give up our ability to feel and that would be boring on multiple levels. tragedy allows us to enjoy a day where nothing goes wrong, many times i have taken an adventure and considered it a success that i got back in one piece. i also am aware that if the game had no challenge, no adversity or problems, we would want to quit it right away.

it feels so good to find your keys or phone after a brief panic of losing them. to clean up from a storm, recover from a fight, rest from a battle, this other side of the mountain is where we want to be. all things equal, we know that everything has two sides and we take one with the other. better to have lived and been hurt, then never to have lived before, to have taken risk, to have entered a storm. its a deal with the gods, the good with the bad, the two sides of the coins are unavoidable.