Strength

When you can look into the eyes of your best friend and see the tears starting to form just below the brim, you know you're in the company of someone that means the world to you - even if the tears never fall. You hear a slight sniffle escape their nose and a catching breath in their voice... you know that they trust you enough to open up their world to you; let you in and see the most vulnerable side of their existence. In day to day life, we're shown that crying makes us weak, that strength is the ability to hold our heads up high and survive with a smile on our faces. We're meant to find comfort in the positive aura of those that surround us - we feed off of the strength of others until we find ourselves and, with any luck, our own strength.

Life is about defining moments and what we make of them and take from them. If, somewhere down the road, you find yourself struggling from an internal battle of wit and heart, take a sneaky glance at the people around you and watch as they deal with their own strife. Where do they find their empathy for those suffering around them? How is it that one person can feel so much at one time and still be able to function charitably? In the hardest of times, how can one person open themselves up for the world to see - only to know that there may not be anyone out there looking? Strength comes not from your ability to push down your feelings of anguish, instead it comes from the desire to be honest with yourself and the world around you.

Philosophy aside, you are what makes the world spin. Devotion to survival and sympathy toward the world provide a cycle of existence that only Earth knows. Whether your best friend is in the next room, or half way around the world - the caring you show them makes a difference in their lives - they know that someone is watching out for them and appreciation in the most silent form is created. While silence is golden, the oldest virtue of time, there's nothing comparatively greater than the knowledge of holding onto someone else's thoughts and feelings; keeping them for a rainy day and knowing that when an earthquake causes their stability to tremor, you'll be there holding the pieces they have long forgotten. You'll fit the pieces of the puzzle and remind them that the world will makes sense once again.

People tend to hide behind their past and forget that tomorrow is shaped by how we live today. It's neither helpful nor simple to remind yourself of how different the past has been. While we can reflect upon the significant moments of our life and use them as tools to decide the future, we must remember that just because one fate threw us a penny, one day another might throw us a dime. A fool is one who lies to himself in hopes that none around him notice. A rich man is nothing more or less than a man who can survive the day with an honest heart.

In a world of lies and sin, false security and unrequited dreams, there is only one way to live - knowing that even though yesterday was horrible and today was draining, tomorrow lies ahead with promises of shaping the future with the choices we make right now. It's all a matter of finding strength in yourself and the world around you.