Hey Little Bro,
I hope you don’t mind if I call you that, because until I thought of you like that, I didn’t know where to start. Of course, you’re not me, you’re somebody else; but then again, you’re not somebody else, you’re me (please don’t try and make sense of that … it sounded deep and made sense at the time.) Ha!
So, I’m just going to say this now and get it out of the way: We were a little shithead (that’s right: we), and if I had a time machine I would go back and beat the brakes off of you. =) Only because when others did it, it entrenched us in our ways. And maybe a literal representation of our own self-destruction would save us the 15 years it took to understand our self-sabotage. I like the sound of that word, sabotage. I like the sound of that word, sabotage — is it French? Because even though younger Ryan doesn’t love younger Ryan. Older Ryan does.
Nobody knows the agony in those 16-year-old heartbeats better than I do. I’m so sorry for how much it hurts, but I’m going to tell you a spoiler: That hurt is the backdrop against which you will experience all the beautiful and fantastic joys of your life. You can never escape pain & hurt in life (trust me, we tried) and that’s okay. Just like we can’t see stars during the day. The darkness of our traumas will only be a background to our brilliant points of joy and happiness. I promise you Little Bro, there is light inside you. This whole journey is just about shining the most magnificent light you can for the universe.
How are you going to do that? It’s okay if you now right now because that shit is trial and error. What’s important is the only thing I require of you is to remember this: My metric of a man is how many people he can lift up, not how many he can put down. This is your guiding principle. It takes a better man to build someone up than it does to destroy them. And when times get tough, remember this: “No gem is polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.” Don’t worry, I’ll be clearing a path ahead because I know you’ll be watching our back. | RRB