I refuse to reduce my language,

As if you don’t feel the anguish –

As if the pain that underlies all that we do,

And the all that we say,

Is mute.

It is the reason we work,

The reason we distract ourselves,

For it is the thing that we fear most.

Even if we are unaware it –

Especially if we are unaware of it.

This nagging, invisible pain

That prods our consciousness

With our own futility.

This insistence of doubt

That we will never

Be good enough,

Strong enough,

Smart enough,

Or have done enough –

To be remembered.

The fear that our lives

Will die in the grave,

And lay there for eternity.

Forgotten.

Decaying…like everything else.

Our minds can’t handle this fear.

In fact,

We have crafted a world of technology so that we don’t have to.

We hide in our man-made refuge,

Safe from the man or woman inside our heads,

Because it is easier to distract fear than confront it.

I mean

Where do we even start to fight this fear?

How do we make our one name significant in a world of 7,000,000,000?

It seems impossible –

We are lost in our own existence.

But our minds tell us that we are unique

And our parents give us trophies.

What is it that separates us from the other 7,000,000,000 people on this planet?

What can make the world remember us?

Do we even want to be remembered?

Who cares?

Just be yourself,

Whether you wait tables in a restaurant

Or save lives in the ER,

Just be you.

Doing what everyone expects,

Or putting ourselves where we best fit in the puzzle

Is too reactive.

We need to be creative.

Life is the puzzle that we create,

That we solve,

And why would we want pieces from someone else’s?

Sure, sometimes the pieces don’t fit,

And we have to spin them around,

But if we go and get a second-hand puzzle

There will always be a piece missing.

Always.

So when we stand up from the table,

And look down at the puzzle

We’ve been working on literally our whole lives,

Remember that no two puzzles are the same,

And while a friend can help you put in some pieces,

The ones you create are the only ones that truly fit.

Stop trying to jam the others into place.

Fear not,

For our puzzles will be solved.

But whether or not people will remember we created them

Depends upon the pieces we make,

Not the pieces we borrow.