7 Ways To Survive Today

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1. Feign a smile.

Make note of how grief-stricken your universe can make you feel, but pretend for the moment you do not mind the uncertainties or the disasters or the travesties of your existence.

2. Light a candle.

Breathe, make note of all the “things” in your possession, in your reach, make note of their dispensability regarding your capacity to live. Blow out the candle, sit in darkness, begin to see.

3. Do not think before you answer: who do you love?

Let the words gush from your lips without questioning why or how, let them surprise you, let them terrify you. Do not stop the words until they are out, until they face you and respond, until they congratulate you. Become them, become love, acknowledge your compassion and feel pride.

4. Remember how to be alone, but let the lonely in.

Prepare a meal for someone who cannot, consume (nourishment, wisdom) at table together or side-by-side, start to forget whether you are here for any reason other than to be and be with.

5. Close your eyes; look inside your mind and do not rationalize its parts or functions.

Release the hullabaloo in one exhale and watch it swirl away in the wind until it dissipates into the distance.

6. Retrieve any pencil, scribble a heart, some stars and words, and what do they all say about you?

You know the difference between a shape and an organ, between lines and living. You know how small and flat the stars are not, and that words are greater than the page, than a pattern, the pandemic of loneliness – words hurt, they heal – they build and break and borrow – they fill they become, words are.

7. Be.

Melt down to your most liquefied self and pirouette to the moon.

image – Shutterstock