When things start to go wrong in our lives, it may sometimes be worth pondering why they weren’t so bad earlier; or, rather than simply despairing of ourselves and repudiating our whole past, once we realize how awry we have already gone, & are only just beginning to realize it, it is well worth refraining from despair & trying hard to see the good in ourselves & our past up until now. This can stave off a lot of selfdestructive behavior & self-hatred that periods of transition & growth are often accompanied by. When one falls into downward spiral, getting labelled ‘mentally ill’, it can be extremely valuable to recapitulate one’s former strengths, rather than looking to move forward at a time when one’s strength is very low & new things are very difficult. Mental Health professionals constantly tell us to look outside of ourselves for answers; to go out more, & listen to what they have to say; to take their ‘medication’. But, in my experience, real lasting health occurs primarily through seeing the good that is already inside oneself, & learning to love and take care of it better, to build on it further. If you don’t have any good inside of you, its not clear to me that anything else is going to help much. But we all have good inside of ourselves, which is why we are still alive, as the Universe constantly separates the wheat from the chaff, keeping only what is still ripe for existence. Very often, for some reason as we get older, particularly in our teens, we tend to forget a lot of things, a lot of the things that kept & made us strong earlier. This is often related to the sense of nihilism, of not knowing what to do with our lives, that often sets in around this age. It is therefore extremely important & valuable to fight this dangerous tendency, & think back to all the virtues that we manifested, barely even realizing it, to cope with the jungle of the playground & the frightening, confusing world around us when we very little. On leaving school, one often feels that one has spent many years in docile obedience, putting great effort, & for what? But instead of scorning this great effort we put in totally, we should look upon it in admiration, & as a sign of what we might achieve if such effort were applied intelligently to our own ends, rather than that of our bullying school masters & anxious, old-fashioned parents. Children can also often be quite kind & gentle, then when we get older we sometimes scorn this attitude, since it has caused others to view us as weak & not gotten us very far; this too is a mistake, because it is precisely the kindness of childhood that when combined with the dominating strength of adulthood can work miracles of success, that cruelty & harshness merely sabotage. The kindness of childhood only worked such little effect because we weren’t big & intimidating enough to stand up for ourselves at the same time & gain the respect we deserved; even then, it may often have protected us & made adults take more kindly upon us at times, rather than garnering a bad reputation early on. Recapitulate and build on your former strengths.