“There’s no courage in naivety because you don’t know what there is to stop you. You don’t know what dangers you might apprehend but to be aware of what it is that your problem is or to be alert existentially, let’s say, means that you are perfectly aware of your limitations and how you might get hurt and then to make the decision to move forward into the unknown and the land of the stranger anyway”

– Jordan Peterson.

To be brave is to consciously face that which you are afraid of. Enjoy your first year but enjoy it cautiously. You can only tell yourself I’ll cross that bridge when I get there so many times.

The reason you can’t see the bridge yet is because you’re already on it.

You can only Bird Box it for so long. Listen, it’s heavy, I know. The bridge is shaky. You don’t want to look down, it’s scary. You don’t want to look forward, it’s long. You don’t have sketchers sneakers, so it’s uncomfortable.

There are crows flying around and poking at you, you can’t focus. There’s a snake telling you to take a break and eat an apple, you’re tired. There’s a snake oil salesman telling you one sip of his “magical elixir” will take all your problems away, you’re desperate. 

It’s a lot, it really is but take it from this time traveller. Right now, I am in a possible singularity of what your future could possibly be.

This outcome is not a guarantee, but the hurdles are the same, we all just tend to either take them at different intervals or in different orders.

You’ve probably watched every motivational video you could find to help pick yourself up. I might tell you, Be brave, face your fears and you might/will roll your eyes and scroll to the X in the top right corner because you’ve heard it all, but I’ll still tell it to you anyways. 

Maybe it’s not that you’ve seen it all. Maybe you’re hiding under the guise of that to mask the fact that you want to run from the responsibility of yourself. That’s why you sipped that “magical elixir” well knowing what it was but again as I said, I’m here to remind you of the responsibility you have to yourself. Of your messy, untidy room and unwashed plates. Of your piling assignments and unpaid bills. Of your job applications and unmade portfolio. Maybe that’s why we always hated adults as kids. We wanted to be free and reckless. To draw on walls and play in mud. The world was your oyster. You were Neo and your parents were Agent Smith.

It was always easy to dismiss our elders, treating them like they didn’t understand what we were going through or felt at the moment, but they’re us or at least what we could become.

How you perceive them will determine whether they’re a beacon of hope or a peek into an unwelcome future but the only way to change whatever outcome might seem to be is to confront it willingly.  

You’ve seen yesterday, and you can see today but tomorrow, tomorrow comes like a trojan horse.

Tomorrow comes for you like Hitler did the French in 1940. Tomorrow comes for you, for your sins, your blessings, your pain, and your sorrow. Tomorrow comes for your joy to leave you hollow.

Tomorrow comes with rain, to drown you or quench your thirst. Tomorrow comes like Tomorrow by Avril Lavigne or whoever/whatever inspired her to write that song. Tomorrow comes from to morgenne which is old English for “on the morrow” which almost doesn’t make sense, just like tomorrow. You don’t know tomorrow and if you haven’t been doing your homework, tomorrow is definitely not your bro. You did what you could yesterday. Try to do what you should today. 

Start your next morning on a positive track. Lift yourself by Kanye West. Pun intended.

Written by Tarique Katuntu