Five years.

For five years, life has consisted of misery, obstacles, poverty, illness, hardships, accidents, betrayal, and death.

Five. Long. Years.

I look into the mirror, and I don’t recognize myself anymore.

I have become weak.

I have become disorganized.

I have become lost.

Then—a thought. A crystalline diamond-thunderbolt shot through my brain, penetrating my consciousness. I bathed in the INESCAPABLE realization, in the finality of that realization.

I bathed in the purity of it.

I realized that I was just where I belonged. I was at home. All this time, I had been at home. A rush of pleasure and calm ran through my entire being.

Home is endless struggle and endless suffering. An endless effort on trying to become better. Every waking hour of every single day.

The path of life is that of adversity. Its love is pain.

So merciless in its simplicity. So pure in its unfairness.

And thus I made a commitment. A commitment to devote myself entirely to this ideal. To BECOME that ideal. To earn its cold embrace each day.

That ideal is DISCIPLINE, and I have chosen to become its pupil.