Dear Lana,

I think my News Year resolution this year is to stop ending all of my sentences with “lame.” Lame.

Like that.

Sometimes, I like to think of life as a game of Words With Friends. For a long period, I thought that there was some sort of strategy or skill needed to succeed, as if having a good vocabulary is actually important. Now, I realize that vocabulary isn’t important at all. It is more important to just brute force different combinations of words until you find something that works.

I was thinking back to this phrase from this movie I watched a couple years ago. “不悔梦归处，只恨太匆匆,” which roughly translates to no regret for the passage of the dream, only hatred for it passing so quickly. Happiness / sadness. Echoes.

The problem with life is that you are capable of living multiple lives but you are only able to live one life. This dichotomy between the lives you could have lived and the life that you lived necessitates unhappiness, as long as you pay attention to the lives that you could have lived. While the lives that you could have lived are always there, the attention you devote to the lives you could have lived is not necessary.

I’ve been having this recurring dream lately. I always find myself at my middle school graduation. I don’t exactly remember what happened in my dream because I don’t write down my dreams anymore, but it’s always my middle school graduation. Was that a pivotal time in my life? I don’t think so; I think it’s because my middle school is just across from my house, so I have to walk past it every time I decide to go for a walk.

I don’t think many people live with the realization that at any point their life could fall apart. I could be walking down the street, and per the meme value, an air conditioner could fall on my head as it did with Chidi in The Good Place. Then, my life would end. If it didn’t end, then at least my life would be changed quite a bit. I suppose life is quite different before and after an air conditioner falls onto your head.

With this realization, there aren’t too many ways to live life that avoids this thought. Instead of hoping that an air conditioner doesn’t fall on my head, it might be better to live and plan for the possibility that an air conditioner might fall on your head. I’m speaking metaphorically, of course.