Even though I may not choose to believe in superstitions,
I have always chosen to toss a penny into the wishing well.
I have chosen to do this because I figured that, in the very worst case scenario I will lose a penny and that will be the end of it.
But in the very best scenario, some mysterious and powerful force will see my sacrifice of this single cent as an offering, and accept it in exchange for an oath to my imagination, so my wish would come true.
I have always figured why would I not take the chance at an unimaginable wealth? Or a long and healthy life happily married to a person I love, or to have superhuman abilities. I mean, you can't even find penny candy in stores anymore anyway.
I have lived with this logic for most of my life and I have used it as a sort of tool to help me make difficult decisions or to help me choose which path I should follow in a lot of situations.
For example, despite not being the most religious person and even a skeptic in many situations, I have always chosen to pray in trying and troubling times.
You see, my logic has always been that it can't possibly do any harm and even at the very least, there is a small chance, that it could maybe do something good. Even if that chance is one in one hundred and eighty two billion, million, trillion whatever the ♥♥♥♥, even if it may be more likely for me to have a heart attack and die in the middle of my prayer, there's still a chance.
And it is that chance, that hope in the face of a towering impossibility, that has kept me going.
However despite this, in recent times i have found myself more often than not, refraining from tossing the penny.
Not often enough to say i'm hopeless but just often enough to be able to see my hope withering in front of me like kindling in a fire.
As if I can not afford with a single cent, the price of clinging onto the hope that maybe some force is alive breathing life into my dreams when I am suffocated by fear.
So instead i opt to overdraft, taking a loan on my life by procrastinating and killing my dreams preemptively.
As if I'm on the first floor of a 100 story sky-scraper, and I can toss a coin to the elevator technician in hopes of getting to the top without stoppages. But the cost of being able to skip those waiting on the floors above mine and to ascend at an accelerated rate, is that the faster you move upwards, the more unstable your travels become and with every level you ascend, it only becomes more likely that you will fall just that much farther.
More often than not I have chosen to turn a blind eye to the falling comet.
Despite the possibility of prosperity given the correct dedication and drive, I choose to remain in uninspired neutral, forever rolling backwards down this steep hill unable to see any desistance to this unsettling descent.
But instead of taking the first step to do anything about it. I decide to sidestep logic, allowing rationality to pass me by as I see my last spec of hope vanishing in the growing distance.
Instead of attempting to close the distance between me and my determination, instead of choosing to take a chance on a shooting star, more often than not I opt close my eyes, becoming blind to hope and focusing on the distance between it and us, and think that,
for as frustratingly far from us as a comment is.... there must be many more people staring at this star in plummet who are far worthier than I of having their wishes granted.
So instead of attempting to pursue my passions, putting one foot in front of the other, one at a time and keeping my sight on the road ahead, I choose to keep my gaze grounded and pride prioritized, my vision locked at my feet as I think about just how small they are and how they couldn't possibly handle the perilous path ahead of me.
Especially considering this path has no clear conclusion or climax.
How can I expect to find determination when I have yet to decide my own destination?
You see one of the struggles with having small feet, is that even though you may be able to put yourself into just about anyone else's shoes..... you will fail to fill the majority of them.

One, be honest.
Be unrelentingly and unmercifully honest. As if every truth is a key, and that key is to your heart and despite how self conscious and worried you may be to reveal what's inside, reveal it. Let your truths spill out through your chest painting your arms which you must leave outstretched for any who may want to see what makes you you, because lets be honest, we both know you want them to see.
And even though it may make you feel awkward, or vulnerable, or weak. Even though there are some who will try to use it as a catalyst to berate or bully you. Even though there are those who will want nothing more than to extinguish every passion you ignite, despite all of these things. Despite all of your protests, all of your refusal. Despite every fiber of your being telling you they might judge you, or hate you, or cast you out and so you must not to let them see, LET THEM!
Because even if these things are true, even if they want nothing to do with you. Even if you bled your soul out for them through veins you severed to let them in only for them to leave you bleeding to your death, there are some that will want nothing more than to know everything about you. And once the ones who want nothing to do with you are gone, only the ones who want everything to do with you will remain.
Two, never bite your tongue.
If you cared enough to ponder it, then you care enough to share it. Even if you pondered on the idea for only a moment, there was once one moment, that you saw value in it. Even if that moment has passed it is our past that gives us power and even if at times we feel powerless we must look to our past to help get us past our troubles no matter how powerful they may be.
We must hoist the sales of our hardships because no matter how hard this ship may be to sail, no matter how daunting and treacherous the ocean that is life may feel at times and no matter how impossible navigating it may seem, we must look back at the vast ocean we have crossed thus far and we must observe all of our trials and tribulations that we have gone through to get to where we are. We must observe the storms we have sailed through not as misfortunes that we had to endure, but rather lessons we had to learn, and realize that, were it not for the winds and rain tearing and tattering our sails to twine, we would not have known that we needed stronger ones.
Is a photograph useless because the moment in which the photo was taken has passed? Are songs meaningless because the meaning behind them had a time and that time has come and gone? Is every conceivable piece of literature, and art, and music, from ancient scriptures and bible verses to Mozart and Beethoven, from Picasso to Davinci and from Shakespeare to Twain, is every creation that anyone has ever been passionate about pointless simply because that same passion may have dwindled since the time of its conception?
As humans we are gifted with the ability to conceive and create from complex ideas and while our memory is also a gift it does not need to be the only tribute to our passions. We document and create not to solidify our stance and opinions, things which were never meant to be confined to a solid form, but rather to serve as a reminder that we were once passionate about them, so we may shift that passion on to something new.
Three, answer everything.
Be it "What time is it?" or "What's your name?" answer everything. Be it a text from a friend or a call from someone you really didn't want to ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ talk to answer everything. Be as open to every question and proposition as the person who proposed it was to your response. Invite every new idea into your brain with arms that damn well better still be outstretched. Because every question asked of you is another swing of a pickaxe, and the person asking it was interested enough in the gem that is your heart that they were willing to excavate their way through the walls you have built around it just to get a glimpse.
So welcome questions and new ideas. Because even if their idea challenges your way of thinking in every way imaginable, accepting that challenge is the least you can do in exchange for all of their digging. Even if in the mere instant the thought of this new conception crosses your brain, every instinct you have tells you to reject it, embrace it. Eulogize it! Go over it in your head checking it once, twice, three times, time again, triple check, check every box and think outside the box, then go over it again. Because even if that idea is wrong, even if that idea is one that you truly don't believe and truly cant except, the very worst that's going to happen, is you're going to be very ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sure that that's the case.