i told the devil a long time ago that i would never allow him to jade me, harden me, or make me contemptuous.

but this is what i've become, and for that, i am sorry.... to myself.

when you realize you feel the same way about everything, you're there. when you look off a mountain and all you see are the pent-up emotions of regret and hatred, you're there. when you feel completely misunderstood and disregarded, you're there.

so what to do?

first of all, everything is perspective. my blessings have become entitlement, miracles no longer impress. yes, i can breathe and walk and talk and love and think and do and become, but i see it all as license. the license to sit back and contemplate through idealism that things should be better or even different.

it is my responsibility to have god's perspective. to count my own perspective as base and selfish and mean. to be willing to say that he is all and i am nothing. that he is great and i am small. to know that he is good and that i am evil.

and it is in realizing this that he sheds his grace on me. it is then that i can love what i cannot love. i then hope in what i found to be hopeless. i seek the betterment of the many instead of the few.

it's all perspective, and when i'm impressed with my own, may he always return me to the truth...