A Christmas Wish

Whether you celebrate the holiday or not, the season is generally associated with what I'd refer to as Hallmark moments: images of fireplaces, decorated trees, happy family gatherings, what have you, with a holiday soundtrack of festive & joyful carols, etc.

Reality is very different for a lot of us this season. Why this is so is a different story for each person.

 and for those of you in this category (including yours truly), I share some of the lyrics of a Christmas song written the Civil War.

"I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,

and wild and sweet

The words repeat

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Skipping past some lyrics referring to the war:

"And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;

"For hate is strong,

And mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The Wrong shall fail,

The Right prevail,

With peace on earth, good-will to men."

A way you can help

There's a local area church that holds an annual memorial service for the area homeless who've passed away that year. The observance includes dinner, and this year's service was held last night. I neglected to account for that, and we had less than five people show up last night.

One of them turned out to be new to the streets and just happened to be passing by.  He'd been eating nothing but peanut butter all week and was grateful to get a hot meal. We ended up talking for probably two hours. This person I'll call Dave is trying to get into PCC (Pasadena Community College) and hopeful that most of the credits he's already accumulated will transfer. He likes history but is focusing on the area of kinesiology leading to some sort of PT/OT career. Throughout our conversation he kept commenting on how wonderful it was just to have a normal conversation.

Some people show up just for the food. They show up, eat and leave, or they leave carrying their plates and eat elsewhere. But there are some who are grateful for the chance for some regular social interaction. I was happy to meet 'Dave' and learn a bit about him, but there is no way I can do that regularly with everyone who shows up; we need people who are willing to show up regularly and provide the opportunity for connection.

At present we show up and try to start serving dinner at 6:45pm Tuesday night (looking to expand to Thursday nights as well) and we're typically done by 8pm (though I personally have stayed as late as 10:30pm talking with people). If you've gotten this far, and you're local to the Pasadena area, I hope you'll consider helping out by donating some of your time.  If you're handy in the kitchen and are able to contribute in the food area even better. But just showing up, and being able to greet someone by their name can be meaningful.

What is Barry's Kitchen about 2.0

Barry's Kitchen prepares meals for the homeless. Ultimately, it's about helping people to overcome the obstacles that are holding them back.  But it takes time and a certain amount of patience - it's not unlike befriending stray animals, drawn by the offer of nourishment, but each one having differing levels of hope and trust.

What makes us different? We seek to nourish rather than feed - and not just physically. While we do accept donations of prepared food, we strive to provide simple but nutritious meals with more of a home cooked flair. We made this choice when we heard of how one homeless person gained 100 lbs in about a year because he got all the free junk food he wanted. The homeless tend to be shunned and ostracized by the rest of society. While they eat, we encourage them to interact much like they would if they having a family meal to talk among themselves and volunteers. For want of a better way to describe it, we seek to nourish not just the body, but the mind and soul as well.

Conquering fear is a big part of the mission, but it starts with ourselves. I discovered that in 2013, when I was attacked in the park after serving dinner. My assailant (who has since been committed to the Patton State mental hospital in San Bernadino) came up from behind me with a box cutter and severed the anterior branch of my carotid. I was forced to decide how much I was willing to risk to pursue something worthwhile. I've never regretted the choice I've made and I've since been prompted to deal with other fears I've carried around for years.  Starting Barry's Kitchen has forced me to deal with the fear of being vulnerable myself.  I've gotten as far as I can doing this with my own resources. I need your help.

A Tale of Two Homeless

The following is essentially a repost of an entry I made on my other blog called "The Secret Asian Man Gets Stabbed", which I started after I was attacked in the park after serving dinner back in 2013.

------------------------------------
There's happy and sad in this entry.

I've mentioned in previous posts that one of the former Tuesday night regulars has gotten back on his feet and is currently working as a truck driver transporting goods all over the US. We hook up when he's in town. He hasn't minded my sharing things we've talked about which I have done, but he has requested that he not be identified by name. I will refer to him as Rob going forward.

When Rob was still here in town, he developed a friendship with another homeless person (whom I will call John) which led to their sharing the same campsite and becoming frequent companions during the day. I thought it a somewhat odd pairing at the time, but I've since discovered that they've shared the same trauma of having been molested as a child and having spent most of their childhoods in foster care. I suspect that the shared trauma was a factor in Rob inviting John to join him on the road riding in his cab earlier this summer. My understanding is that John was essentially a passenger the entire time, dependent on Rob for meal money, etc. This and other things led Rob to tell John that he had to come back to Pasadena, and Rob dropped off John in S. Ca, gave him some bus money, and Rob went back on the road.

John never showed up for dinner on Tuesdays, prompting a bit of concern on both my part and Rob's part.

Rob came back into town (back in October) and we spent some time together. It turns out that Rob had been offered a chance to take a job in Las Vegas where he'd still be driving a truck, but he'd be based locally and have a place to call home. More importantly, it would give him a chance to explore opportunities to help the homeless himself, which apparently has become his long term goal - he also now considers me a mentor - which definitely blows me away - so he wanted to go over the pro's and con's of the situation with me.

We also took some time to check out Rob's & John's old campsite (there's another story just about this that's waiting to come out) to try and determine if John was there. We found evidence of John having made it back to the campsite, but the place had been ransacked (another possible entry about that) and looked like it had been unoccupied for weeks.

Rob did a online search the next morning and found out that John had been arrested on a felony charge back in August and currently being held in lieu of $130,000 bail. He was arraigned Nov. 1st.

And there are the stories of two homeless people, both having experiencing the trauma of being molested as a child.

I admit that I am woefully ignorant of how molestation can affect one's life, but I do know that it's common for those who were molested as a child to become molesters themselves. This was John's choice, and as a convicted sex offender, homelessness was obviously the easiest option - even if he found gainful employment (the only job John ever had was delivering the LA Times), he would have had a difficult if not impossible time finding housing as a registered sex offender. And now it looks like he's going to spend the rest of his life in prison.

Rob, on the other hand, while contemplating marriage to someone with two little girls, had already confessed to me a fear that he would do the same and knew that he needed to get help to ensure that that didn't happen. And now his long time goal is to help the homeless in some way.

At the time I first posted this, I was motivated but not sure why. Part of it was to mourn the choices of someone who clearly had some bad things happen to him that were beyond his control, and he was unable to get past that. Yet, there's also the story to celebrate of someone of who clearly had some bad things happen to him that were beyond his control who is fighting the good fight to not let what happened in his past define him and his future. There was resonance with both stories here. I've made some poor choices, which I can't undo, but nothing that limits my fundamental freedom to dream about goals I may not be able to reach but am still free for which to aspire. 

It Is What It Is

This is a response to the last entry which focuses on the instances when it's necessary to deal with negative past experiences to help one get past certain fears. It occurred to me that some might get the idea that that's all there is. The reality is that factors that might hold one back from doing what they are meant to do can fall into the "It Is What It Is" category.

I use that phrase a lot to describe situations that may not seem quite optimal, but there really is no one to blame or indict. There's no malice involved. It just is what it is.

Part of my personal struggle is in large part influenced by the conflict of world views I deal with on a daily basis.

I live in a western culture that emphasizes the rights of the individual, but I am the son of immigrant parents who come from a culture that emphasizes a holistic/community based world view. Some of the values of these world views are mutually exclusive, yet at any given moment, one set of values *must*prevail, even if it's only for an instant. For me, there's a constant tug of war going on 24/7.  I will assume that the vast majority of readers will come from a western culture, so I will try to give examples of how these world views conflict.

My ethnic culture happens to be Chinese. Everyday language reinforces the idea that you are part of something bigger than yourself. It starts when you greet someone - the greeting you use is determined by your relationship with the other person. If it's family, there's a specific term for each possible relationship, no generic aunt/uncle/grandparent terms, the phrase you use identifies mother's/father's side of the family and the case of aunts and uncles, whether they're older or younger than your parent. even basic greetings such as mr/miss/mrs indicate whether the person is older or younger than you are. The result is that as soon as you meet someone else, your first thought is use the appropriate greeting - you are part of something bigger than yourself, and you are always aware of your relationship to others within that grouping. At a formal family style meal where the food is in the center of the table, you never place food on your own plate - everyone else at the table serves you, while you serve everyone else. This reflects how the community takes care of all its members.

The difference in dynamics can be seen in how consensus is reached in a group. Folks who have a community world view are more likely to acquiesce to what they perceive to be the best choice for the group. That doesn't necessarily mean that they're content with the choice; it's just as likely that the majority are dissatisfied with the choice, but have been manipulated by a dominant individual who wants their own way but has managed to frame the alternative as best for the group.

Current relationships are key in establishing new relationships; you rely on introductions from mutual acquaintances, which often come at a cost achieved by bartering various sorts of gifts and favors. This particular aspect of the community world view is something I personally have had to address as I am currently working in a sales position where I went into the situation expecting warm leads, but ciircumstances changed, and I've been forced to develop my own leads via cold calling. This is not yet a strength of mine, and as it turns out, all of my clients are friends or friends of friends; my natural inclination is to rely of existing relationships to develop new relationships. This is something I will continue to deal with as I begin soliciting donations in earnest.

The point is that part of my "fear" with cold calling is also a product of my cultural conditioning that needs to be examined as much as the fear of rejection. But that part of it is what it is.

More Than Just a Cleaning

I used the metaphor of going to the dentist a few entries back to illustrate the process of conquering some of my identified fears. I've mentioned before that one fear is about not being able to make a difference. That makes me hesitant to post, as I cope with the fear that being transparent with my struggles will only result only in futility, or worse, ridicule.

I get that most of us live on cruise control, especially with how busy our schedules get; we really don't give much thought to why we do what we do. Many, especially if they enjoy a certain level of affluence, will be less inclined to rock the boat. Still, I suspect that most of us deep down will concede that we do things we would rather not do, yet we don't do anything to change that.

It's like being a person, after being told by a dentist that some unpleasant procedure needs to be done, saying "I would have been fine if I'd never come to see you"; no, the problem would have still existed. Moreover, the specific condition could have gotten worse.

Many of us would be so much better off if we dealt with some of the things in our past that hold us back.

Goodwill: If You Can't Say Something Nice, Say Thank You.

My friend Barbara Morrison offered her 501(c)3 to serve as a fiscal sponsor while we get through the final stages of getting Barry's Kitchen up and running as a 501(c)3 of our own. This allowed Barry's Kitchen to accept our first tax deductible donation last week.

The experience prompted me to perform a much needed re-evaluation of my expectations when it comes to getting donations. Look at how Goodwill works: while they do list a number of things they will not accept, they offer tax free donations on what they will allow you to drop off, and a large percentage of what comes in through their doors never sees the inside of the store. The point is that some folks give things of value out of a sense of altruism, while others are motivated entirely by the write-off and will in a lot of instances be donating things that have little value to them, and even less value to the recipient. But to be critical of that risks getting no donations at all.

So the lesson learned last week: If you can't say something nice, say "thank you".

Politics

I've allowed myself to be afraid to assert my (fairly conservative) world view when it's been attacked on social media. I thought it was bad *before* the election...

Fear is a result of many different factors. There's fear of the unknown. There's fear of duplicating/re-living unpleasant experiences. In some of those cases,  the expectation needs to be examined and reevaluated; and we discover that we were conditioned to expect the same kind of response but the expectation wasn't a valid one. In other cases, the expectation is appropriate. For example, it's realistic to expect to be attacked for expressing/defending a conservative world view. I've responded to/refuted liberal views posted on Facebook and been de-friended as a result. That's relatively mild compared to the sentiments often expressed if politics becomes a topic of real conversation face to face.

The point is not to indict that behavior but rather to examine the expectations I've developed and how that affects my responses to it. And these are some of the expectations I've developed:

1) Liberals are driven solely by ideology and can not be reasoned with, so don't bother trying;

2) I will be attacked if I try to assert a differing point of view;

3) If I manage to refute their point of view, they will respond by ostracizing me;

The thing is, should I re-examine those expectations and find them to be valid going forward, I can still choose how to respond when a certain expectation is met.

1) My goal is to facilitate a discussion, not to win an argument. While I have no control over how the other person(s) will react, I have control of my behavior. My goal now is to listen, and to make them feel heard. I do not have to have the same expectation of them. The goal is to hear and understand their view not to agree with it;

2) If I am attacked, I can set boundaries on how other behave and withdraw gracefully if needed; I'm willing to have a discussion, but it is NOT OK to bludgeon me verbally;

3) If someone chooses to withdraw from me because of my choices, that is OK. Their choice does not reflect on me.

Going to the dentist

It's been a hard week. Part of it is tied to my previous post; I'm aware of destructive thought patterns and I'm trying to figure where they come from, which is essentially trying to identify my blind spots visually. The absurdity amuses me briefly.

My first fund raiser is tomorrow. My friend Barbara Morrison has offered to do a series of concerts to help me raise money. Jack Maeby, who runs the band Little Faith, has offered to do something similar.

Instead of being grateful that I have friends like this, I'm worried about how many people are going to show up tomorrow and about whatever else might go wrong. I'm more convicted than ever that I need to get objective third party feedback on how I see things. I know that this is a good thing, yet I'm reminded of a quote by C.S. Lewis:

"What do people mean when they say, 'I am not afraid of God because I know He is good'? Have they never even been to a dentist?

The elephant

I'm struggling with this entry. I started with 5-6 paragraphs of stream of consciousness trying to get to my intended topic,  have deleted/rewritten it several times over a period of 5-6 days. This is taking too long. So here goes:

This is a look into how we form our opinions/beliefs/expectations about things. This is important because this is where we learn to be afraid about the unknown.

These thoughts originated from hearing differing accounts from various homeless people about their experience, specifically about how much trust/friendship that can be found. One person's experience was that other homeless people he encountered generally looked out for each other. Another person's experience was that homeless people all preyed on each other.

We are typically bombarded by opinions/reviews hoping to shape our thinking, much of it unsolicited. In a lot of instances, it's helpful to have that as a frame of reference to help set reasonable expectations; it's a bad idea to walk down a dark alley a night, etc.  You can get as much feedback as you can from as many people you know, but it can still turn out like the story/parable of the blind men and the elephant. Each blind man touches only a part of the elephant and assumes that they have a complete understanding of what an elephant is. The problem is that no one realizes that their blindness prevents them from seeing how their experience is the total of reality.

Perhaps the opinions we need to seek most are feedback on our blind spots.

Don't Get Mad, Get.... Sad?

This is kinda personal and something I wouldn't normally share, except I choose to believe that it might help someone reading this. But I'm also excited because even as I write this, I see how this seems to lead to a lot of other thoughts that are going to be helpful... (for me, at least!)

I have a less than ideal relationship with my mother due to a lack of communication. I consider this to be a source of some of my biggest fears and regrets. It's all the more frustrating because I consider myself to be fairly articulate and also consider myself to be a pretty good listener. The problem was that our communication was hampered both by a lack of formal education on the part of my mother and also by cultural/language barriers. I feel like I need to clarify that a bit. My mother's father was the village school teacher and he died during WWII when my mother was about 9 years old. So her schooling pretty much ended there, not counting a couple of months of ESL shortly after I was born in the US. I, OTOH, could read college level texts when I was about 5 years old, and all my life, probably driven by a need to be heard and understood, I have always tried to use the most appropriate word or turn of phrase, hoping that my audience would appreciate the nuance - a hope that's dashed more often than not, sadly. And while becoming fluent in my mother's native tongue might have alleviated some of problem (just so you know, I paused for a second before deciding to use the word alleviate), the reality is that cultural barriers would still exist. For example, things like "privacy" or even the phrase "don't take it personally" have no equivalents in chinese language and culture.

The long and short of it is that the typical M.O. is that I would try and tell something to my mother, and it would get caught up in trying to explain the meaning of a word I used, which would result in my never getting to the actual things I hoped to convey. It wasn't limited to just my mother, but it hurt the most to feel like I wasn't ever being heard by my mother. It hurt less to bottle things up and and be self-sufficient than to feel being unheard (like the haircut incident I blogged about in http://samstabbed.blogspot.com/2016/08/a-minority-experience-bowl-haircuts.html), and so that's what I've done most of my life. This line of thought deserves its own entry, and I choose to go back to the intial premise of this entry

My mom called this past weekend, and like most moms, asked some questions I didn't want to answer and I told her so. She asked why, and I frankly told her that it felt like she never heard anything I tried to say. The ensuing conversation followed a fairly predictable route: she asked me to try and explain, and for a number of minutes, her response to everything I said was: "I don't understand", and I began to feel the familiar sense of frustration I've had to deal with over the years. I didn't see that way at the time, but I had a choice: to shut down and withdraw or to keep trying to connect, or respond to the fear from risking another result of bitter disappointment. I elected to keep trying, and I finally connected. Knowing that Chinese culture more or less forces everyone to interpret any sort of dissatisfaction and personalize it. I struggled for a way to express something that could be heard, and out of nowhere, the following words came out of my mouth: "I don't like it being this way. But it doesn't make me mad. It just makes me feel sad." And we both started crying.

What exactly is the point of all this? I can't tell everything for sure but right now:
1) I feel like I was able to communicate something fundamental with my mother that I never had been able to before, and in doing so, I made a choice to not let the fear of feeling an old pain control my actions;

2) I hope that I was able to express sadness/pain in a way that made her understand that I wasn't blaming her. I think there's a deeper fundamental point in that that should help anyone trying to air a grievance - hence the title, don't get mad, get sad. When there's anger, it's typically driven by a sense of injustice. When there's injustice, it's typically associated with assigning blame and making restitution, and so when there's anger, it typically provokes a defensive response.

I don't remember the context, but I remember the quote from a young child sitting on the lap of a grieving grandparent: "I decided to stay and help him cry." That might be one of the most profound things I've ever heard, although I haven't grasped its profundity until now. I think it's the right attitude to have when dealing with someone who's grieving. More on this later.

Lighting the First Match

I learned an important lesson recently; we are not alone in the shadows. I share the lesson because I believe we all benefit from knowing it.

I DJ weekly at a place that has live bands play, usually within the soul and blues genres. The place has a dedicated dance floor, and I dance when I like the song and when there's someone I think I'd enjoy dancing with to that particular song (this is another shadow I need to shine some light on, but that's outside the scope of this particular entry). I've developed a fair amount of dance partnering skills over the years, and a lot of people have told me that they enjoy watching me (all right, I'll go there now - despite this, I'm hesitant to ask certain people to dance for a number of reasons I understand to be silly but it still is what it is), and I've also noticed when certain people watch me as well.

One such person was there last night. She's a singer with a band that performs there every month, and I've noticed her watch me as I dance. The band played a slow song featuring another member of the band as a vocalist, so she came off the stage and sat down in the audience. I approached her, and asked her if she'd like to dance. She said that she really appreciated me asking her as she'd watched me dance on numerous nights but she was afraid that she'd be a terrible partner. We chatted for a bit, during which time, she promised me that she'd dance with me the next time I asked her.

The point is that even though we both wanted the same thing - to dance with each other, letting fear win would have resulted in us never even exploring the possibility. But all it takes is one person lighting the first match to make the shadows go away - not just your own shadows, but other people's shadows as well.

This learned lesson reinforces the idea people are waiting for me to slay the dragon, even if it's one scale at a time.

The Dragon's Shadow

Fear is like a dragon. I have an idea of what it's going to take to slay the dragon, but first I need to find it. It occurs to me that even if I can't see the dragon, I can see the shadow that the dragon casts by identifying patterns of behavior in me that are clearly influenced by my inappropriate beliefs.

For example, I've been told over the years that a lot of people consider me aloof. I've also had friends tell me that they wished that other people knew me the way that they knew me. It's obvious to me now that my choice of behavior is a defense mechanism to protect me from the fear of being rejected, and I have often made it difficult for people to get to know the real me. I only allow people to get to know me when they enter a situation where I feel like I have a sense of control. This is a common M.O. for people who are slaves to fear - the greater the fear, the more that they try to control the external circumstances. That sense of control can take many different forms, and I'm sure I have no idea of all the things I do. Having said that, right now at this very moment it now occurs to me why I've been subjected to financial circumstances where I have no control of the situation whatsoever; a large part of my control has been financial security. I can see other shadow shapes that are cast by the dragon; I used to hold monthly dance parties where I opened up my house to a lot of complete strangers. I see now that it was largely about creating my own safe place and allowing selected bits of the world into it. I do the same thing now where I've been DJ-ing every week for a number of years now. I prefer to stay in the comfort of my established DJ booth rather than try to ingratiate myself into groups of dancers there. The belief is that they are  cliques, and on top of that, I don't belong because I am not a lindy dancer. I see that I carry a lot of beliefs that I don't belong anywhere I go. Some of it is racial, some of it comes from being aware that my mind works a lot more quickly than most. A lot of it comes from things I have yet to identify. The end result is that I elect to repress a lot of my personality in social settings.

It's not like I hadn't seen some of the shadow before. A number of years ago, a friend made the following observation: "whenever you talk about a potential girlfriend, you're already ambivalent about her or she's already ambivalent about you." I could see even then that there was a pattern of self sabotaging behavior and how it affected my decision making process across the board. I just had no idea of the size of the shadow, nor did I have any idea of what the dragon was - the fear that is a result of my self-loathing

Loathing is a harsh term, but it was a useful term for me because it helped to convey the depth and the malignancy of the situation. It's provided the impetus to dig into the painful disappointments in my past that have prompted these feelings. Facing and identifying these moments and their impact are part of the process of conquering them.

There's more fear to conquer here painful memories and  the belief that I will feel the same amount of pain reliving these memories I've repressed. The reality is that events that may have been painful in the past aren't necessarily going to have the same emotional impact now that I am older with a (hopefully) more mature understanding of the situation and the expectations I had initially. But even if this is not so, it's necessary. And there's a difference between necessary suffering and unnecessary suffering.

At this point I remain unsure of how much self-disclosure is appropriate. But I do believe that sharing the story of the struggle WILL be helpful for others who experience the same kind of self-loathing that I do.

The mission: Conquering Fear

A process has been started that will culminate in a 501(c)3 entity known as Barry's Kitchen. We've been granted 501(c)3 status from the IRS, but I understand that we can not begin to solicit tax deductible donations, until the powers that be grant our corporate seal.

The process has included developing a vision statement. While it's been strongly felt that including certain details of my story are more likely to prompt people to contribute, I was uncomfortable about making it about me. And appropriately so, because it's not about me. It's about conquering fear.

First, it's not just providing a meal, it's about creating a temporary oasis where anyone can come and gather in community to share a meal. It's about easing a little bit of the fear and anxiety of those who don't even have a place to lay their head at night - that for at least a few moments of that day, they know where their next meal is coming from, they can gather knowing that for at least for the duration of the meal, they're safe; they won't be hassled by other homeless or by the police while we're there serving. And if I can say so, it's about knowing that someone cares enough about them to continue to try and help them despite the possible potential cost to themselves.

That provides a nice segue about my conquering fear in terms of continuing to help the homeless after my being attacked. More detail on that can be found at: http://samstabbed.blogspot.com/2013/03/this-blogged-is-tied-to-my-other.html  But I'm now only beginning to realize the depth of the fears that haunt me. Very recently, a good friend made an observation about me. The phrasing was harsh, but the harshness was required for me to grasp the depth of the truth in the observation. And the truth is that I loathe myself. Let me clarify this. I loathe myself in a way that prompts to perform self-sabotaging behavior on a routine basis. I loathe myself so that I don't pursue anything unless I'm pretty sure that I can conquer any potential problems. I loathe myself because I believe that I am somehow jinxed. And it's clear to me that I can not continue to think this way without having a serious impact on the potential success of Barry's Kitchen as a vehicle to accomplish good things. I've already seen an example of how my self-loathing has prompted me to think small. A few months ago, I created a request for funds on gofundme.com, and I requested funds both to reimburse me for some of the expense that will be incurred providing food for the homeless in 2016.  I put a limit at $1000, and I posted the request on Facebook. A friend suggested that I rewrite the request because I left out a lot of pertinent details. I responded that my target audience was people that already knew me, and the friend then asked me: "Are you afraid that some eccentric millionaire might see your request and donate $10000?" and truthfully, I had to respond yes to that.

The point to all of this is that while yes, I had to conquer a certain amount of fear in choosing to continue to work with the homeless, but there's a lot more fear left to conquer - including the fear that Barry's Kitchen might grow into something beyond I now recognize to be very modest dreams. And now it's incumbent on me to do some serious soul searching and deal with this. And it occurs to me that the message about conquering fears goes beyond helping the homeless. There are a lot of people out there with awesome potential who will never realize it because they're trapped in the same kind of thinking.

It occurs to me that I've finally discovered the real purpose of this blog, not to mention the working vision for Barry's Kitchen - it's about helping people find the strength to persevere when it come to pursuing the desires of their hearts after they've experienced a serious setback. It's both inspiring and terrifying to think that there are a lot of people out there waiting for me to conquer this myself.