Alchemy.

The first thing we must ask for, from Life and from ourselves, is an open mind, a pure heart without any hard feelings toward anyone, and certainly not toward ourselves. We must put all of our effort into asking for humility, so that we can wonder like a child, observing in awe. Honesty with ourselves is not easy, for in truth many thoughts are painful, so much so that we run away from them, at all costs sometimes.

Ideas are dangerous, ideas are significant, and sometimes once you’ve heard something or seen something, you can’t unsee it or unhear it. However, the path toward truth is always safe, even when it becomes frightening and dangerous. And in other cases, it’s not that new ideas are frightful or complicated; it is simply that they ask something of us: to give up certain things, whether material, social or psychological, namely self-esteem. And why would anyone ever want to give that up—of all things, to feel worse about themselves? Not to mention material things.

Fortunately, there are other things to be had. While false self-esteem disappears, a more subtle yet true sense of self is to be found. A foundation that is solid and unmovable before all people and circumstances—not so with those towers of self-esteem arrived at through competitiveness and superficial things.

There is only one thing a person ought to be judged on, for we are to be judged in this life, and that is our character. They say when the great scorer comes to mark our card, he doesn’t look at whether we won or lost, but how we played the game. Were we fair? Were we righteous, or attempting to be? Did we dedicate ourselves to becoming good? Did we reflect and consider what it is to be good? Did we rise above childish or primitive living? Did we become true gardeners of the earth, caring for all that is to be appreciated, all that is called Life?

This may all sound pretty damning, especially if we are further along in life, but I assure you it isn’t. There is something to be found in the confessions of old times at the time of death, even if they were our last words. The mentality must be one of repentance: an apology, sincere and grave, to admit our wrongdoing, to confess it, to realise it. For only when one conceives that something is wrong can one then possibly change. In simpler words, and not limited to our deathbed, we must say sorry; we must turn our ship around and head the other way, toward righteousness, at any given time in life. Let us make peace with God.