Accept who you are.

Almost everyone gets this wrong. Ours is a culture of dreamers. People say it all the time: “You can be anything you want to be.” It’s not true. You can experience joy in this life, not by aspiring to do the impossible, but by abiding in that which is possible for you. When you do that people will say about you (as I often do) “I could never do what he does.”

Stuff is more difficult than you think.

You’ve done some difficult things, so you may have an idea of this, but I promise—life gets harder. And that’s okay. It’s the way life works. When a situation becomes very difficult, it could mean it’s time to change your situation, or it often means you just need to work at it longer. Part of growing up is learning to tell the difference. It helps to get advice from people you trust and who truly care about you. I’m here for you, as long as I can be.

Everything is magic.

This is tricky to grasp, but I think you’ll understand. You probably remember from Sunday school, the term Jesus used, “born again”. I believe he meant that in order to enter heaven, we must remember what was obvious to us as children but we’ve come to forget—that the universe is strange and wonderful, and you should be endlessly fascinated by the unlikeliness of it all. When we forget the world is magic, we enter a hell of our own creation. When we remember, we find heaven.

Give yourself grace.

Some mistake this for another way of saying “be lazy”, but that’s not what it means. In fact, lazy people are often ungracious with themselves. There will be times in your life when you strive for something you believe is right, and you will fall short; you will make mistakes. There seems to be an instinct in the human mind that says you only have so many mistakes available to you before you are an ultimate failure. It’s not true. Grace is a bottomless resource, a never ending well of love and forgiveness, always offered. Choose to accept it.

Love always, from an older-ass man.