Ever experienced a Moment of Truth? Odds are you have. These are times when you’re faced with the difficult, life-changing decision of quitting the pursuit of something. They happen in matters of the heart — love, work — because those require the biggest time commitments and emotional investments from us. If you’ve ever risked great pain for great gain, you’ve had a Moment of Truth.

Not experiencing one right now? Let me refresh your memory. They happen before you’re even aware of it: one second everything’s okay, and the next second shit hits the fan. Reality sets in and you start to panic, wondering whether you’re on the right track, whether you’ve made good decisions, whether you’ve got the chops, whether all of this is even worth the risk. Your mind races back and forth, whittling down your confidence little by little until you’re intimidated and exhausted by the sheer number of arguments against you… until finally you see your out. You can give up. It’s so temptingly easy, like going back to sleep under your warm blanket instead of climbing out into the cold discomfort of your room. You can quit, right now, and all your stresses and pains will vanish into thin air. Instant relief.

Sometimes the right thing to do is quit. What’s tough is when you’re convinced you shouldn’t quit just yet, despite the uncertainty of whether you’ll ever get what you want, and despite the suffering. (If you’re experiencing a Moment of Truth, to some degree you are suffering.) It’s hard — at times soul-crushingly hard — to give up on something that has potential.

Now, let me be clear. This isn’t about how to decide whether to quit; I’m assuming you’ve considered all the pros and cons and ruled it out. And it’s not about figuring out if you’re doing anything wrong and how to fix those things; I’m assuming that you’ve spent time reflecting, you’ve figured out what mistakes you’re making, and you’ve taken the necessary steps to correct them. This is about knowing that you shouldn’t quit yet, so you have to keep on keeping on, even though the situation still sucks, and how to deal with the countless Moments of Truth that you’re going to have every single day thereafter.

Somehow, you have to become comfortable with things not yet being how you want them to be. Easier said than done, but one thing has worked for me: thinking about “the big picture.” We’re all familiar with that phrase, but don’t be quick to dismiss it. Like most good advice this is deceptively simple but supremely difficult. It’s easy to be engrossed in your experience and forget the bigger picture, especially if you’re as present-minded as I am, and especially if you’re truly suffering. It’s easy to feel sorry for ourselves, to turn our lives into sob stories where we, the deserving protagonists, are victims of unfair circumstances. And it’s easy to do nothing to help ourselves cope with our situations, merely hoping that better days come sooner than later.

The alternative isn’t easy: you’ll have to constantly remind yourself to put things in perspective. It’s hard to admit that there are people in the world with worse problems. (This was my perspective-of-choice for many years, until I realized that you don’t have to trivialize all of your problems. Your problems are significant, just not that significant, usually.) It’s hard to remember that you’ve endured hopeless hardships before and came out better for it. (It may even take you some time to remember specific examples from your past. One day your current situation will also become a memory that’s filed away, something you’ll recall, rarely and randomly, with scientific objectivity or optimistic nostalgia.) And it’s hard to accept suffering as a necessary part of life — a harsh reminder that you’re alive. But as I’ve said before, the hard choices are usually the right ones.

So what are you striving for? And why are you suffering for it? Because if it’s not worth quitting, there has to be a worthy goal. Keeping that goal in mind can help you persist through the suffering and uncertainty… until your next insight. See, there’s a second type of Moment of Truth. These are the insights you will inevitably discover, which will either make your suffering more tolerable or convince you to quit. You just need something to get you from insight to insight. The time between them will seem wider than it will be, the end will seem further than it will be, and your suffering will feel longer than it will be, but these insights will happen, and one of them will bring you to a resolution. It’ll happen before you’re even aware of it: one second everything’s shitty, and the next second everything’s okay. Reality sets in and all your stresses and pains vanish into thin air. Instant relief.

Did you hear about the man who was misdiagnosed with a coma for 23 years? Paralyzed after a serious car accident, he was trapped in his body, unable to tell doctors that he was actually conscious. “All that time I just literally dreamed of a better life,” he said. “Frustration is too small a word to describe what I felt.”

Unfathomable. When I try to imagine, truly, how he felt — the claustrophobic hopeless desolation — my mind retreats, desperate for air. It was a horrible situation on top of a horrible situation. Worst of all, even if they knew he was conscious, he was still trapped in his paralyzed body, his life forever changed.

Or have you heard of the movie Precious? It’s based on a novel called Push about a teenage girl from Harlem who has been repeatedly raped by her drug addict father and physically and mentally abused by her invalid mother. The novel is based on the young women the author encountered while working as a literacy teacher in Harlem and the Bronx for seven years. The movie trailer alone is heartbreaking.

Life isn’t fair. The world owes us nothing and, as a result, many people have unfortunate lives. If you really think about it, if you really grasp this harsh reality, you should feel discomfort — the same feeling you get when you walk through a hospital stealing glances into patients’ rooms. You should feel guilt, because of your undeserved fortunes and your trivial concerns. You should feel profound sadness.

But you should also feel gratitude. Because if you’re reading this, you are living a blessed life. I read somewhere that to be officially “poor” in America is to be twenty times richer than 1.2 billion people in the world. Next time you’re thinking about what you lack in your life, don’t think of the things you wish you had; think of the things you’re glad you’re without. And then consider your blessings.

It’s not about using other people’s misery to fuel your contentment, and it’s not about feeling guilty for your blessings; you should only feel guilty for ingratitude.

It’s about humility — “an earnest acceptance of life’s pains and promises.”

We have no idea how lucky we are to be alive:

We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. —Richard Dawkins

Think about that for a second. We already won the most improbable lottery of all, and yet we take it for granted every single waking day. We are lucky to be alive. Unimaginably lucky. Now, consider your life goals for a moment. The common denominator is simple: happiness. Everyone wants to be happy. Obvious enough, you’re thinking, but what we often fail to remember is that happiness isn’t a destination; it’s a way of travel. And it is available to us at all times, if we choose it.

But that choice is one of the hardest choices we make, and we make it every day. And we’ll never stop being presented with that choice until the end of our days.

••

Three things have helped make that choice easier for me:

• mindfulness,
• internal motivation,
• and perspective.

You may remember that I wrote a list of new habits that I wanted to develop at the beginning of this year. At the top of the list was the habit I considered most important: being mindful. A refreshing break from our culture’s myopia, the Zen concept of mindfulness intrigued me — being present and aware from moment to moment without drifting into thoughts of the past or concerns about the future, or getting caught up in thoughts or opinions about what’s going on.

If while washing dishes, we think only of the cup of tea that awaits us, thus hurrying to get the dishes out of the way as if they were a nuisance, then we are not “washing the dishes to wash the dishes.” What’s more, we are not alive during the time we are washing the dishes. In fact, we are completely incapable of realizing the miracle of life while standing at the sink. If we can’t wash the dishes, the chances are we won’t be able to drink our tea either. While drinking the cup of tea, we will only be thinking of other things, barely aware of the cup in our hands. Thus we are sucked away into the future and we are incapable of actually living one minute of life. —Thich Nhat Hanh

However, mindfulness alone is insufficient. Equally important is being internally driven, unmotivated by the external rewards that keep others motivated to go on with lives composed of dull and meaningless routines. When you’re internally driven, you’re more autonomous because you aren’t easily manipulated by external threats or rewards. And you’re more involved with everything around you because you’re fully immersed in the current of life.

The alternative, David Foster Wallace warns, is unconsciousness, the default-setting, the rat-race — the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing:

If you worship money and things — if they are where you tap real meaning in life — then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already — it’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power — you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart — you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.

Intrinsic motivation is hard enough, but there’s something much more challenging: understanding, truly, that the world does not revolve around us. Or, more specifically, that what we experience is not the whole truth. Everything in your immediate experience argues that you are the absolute center of the universe. Think about it: There is no experience you’ve had that you were not at the absolute center of. But if astronomy has taught us anything, it’s that all of human history is only a microscopic dot in this ever-expanding universe that existed billions of years before us and will outlive us for many many more. And, if you watched Jill Bolte Taylor’s TED Talk, you understand that just because it’s easy for us to operate on these default-settings — interpreting our experiences as the truth — doesn’t mean that we should.

••

I admit this seems like wishy-washy, ganja-smoking hippie philosophy, but there’s truth here: Conventional thinking gives us the wrong priorities, and considering how briefly we exist, it’s a tragedy to squander our remaining days — however many they may be — on things that are ultimately unfulfilling.

I’m reminded of when I discovered optimism in 6th grade. Instantly, I was unable to feel sorry for myself, knowing that things could always be worse. It was liberating, and I wanted to share my insight with everyone I knew. But I soon realized that it wasn’t as easy for most people to be as positive. And it’s because it takes a lot of willpower. I didn’t need as much willpower because optimism found a willing partner in my perfectionism. If not, it wouldn’t have been as easy. But ease and difficulty are subjective concepts. As Shakespeare wrote, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Plenty of things in life are hard. And usually, it’s the hard choices that are the right choices.

I’m not saying that my approach to living is what you should do; like most things in life, there’s no single right answer. There are multiple means to an end. You should find your own way. My point is that we always have a choice, to interpret our lives in a way that strengthens or weakens us — to find a better way. And it’s not as easy as supergluing a pair of rose-tinted glasses to your head. And it shouldn’t be. Because this is about happiness, the Holy Grail of our lives, and we should earn it.

The capital-T Truth is about life before death. It is about simple awareness — awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over: “This is water, this is water.” It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive, day in and day out. —David Foster Wallace

High school teacher Bill Bullard makes a great point about opinions:

Schools, especially good ones that so emphasize student voice, teach us to value opinion. This is a great deception. Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge; it requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge, according to George Eliot, is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world. It requires profound, purpose-larger-than-the-self kind of understanding.

People love sharing their opinions. It defines them and can signal superiority or significance. There’s nothing inherently wrong about opinions, but it’s important for our opinions to depend on facts. Ryan Holiday says it well:

Your opinion is either dependent on the facts or it’s not. When [the facts] change, you should shift along with them, not wobble and revert like an earthquake proof building. We know that, but try and see. Read something that directly contradicts a long-held opinion on a controversial issue (say gay marriage or tax cuts or some person you idolize), you can see how quickly you try to rationalize and preempt the arguments as though you have a stake in it. The reality is that it shouldn’t matter which side you’re on, so long as it’s the correct side.

But sometimes there are strong arguments on both sides. For these, one should have strong beliefs, weakly held. I don’t admire the agnostic who lacks the courage to take a stand. It’s important to speak and act with conviction, but equally important is having the humility to admit when you’re wrong and and the flexibility to change your position.

While Bullard is right to praise empathy, remember that true empathy is impossible, that you will never be able to truly understand how it feels to be anyone else. False empathy is the most insidious form of false knowledge because it disguises mistaken assumptions, judgments, and opinions with good intentions.

They say that love is unselfish, but is that even possible? I’ve never loved someone for purely unselfish reasons, my desire for another entwined with my desire to improve my happiness. And as soon as I realized I was no longer happy or could be happier, I quickly moved toward a conclusion. I loved myself first and foremost.

Especially when love is one-sided, which it often is. Not since elementary school have I endured one-sided love for longer than I could help it. If I saw no chance in the near future for reciprocation, I quickly had a change of heart. I loved myself first and foremost.

And then I met an outlier — someone immune to my tactics because she plagiarized my dreams. I’ve never been in this position before: knowing that if things don’t work out, it may not be as easy to move on. In all my past relationships, my affection never outweighed the other’s. And there was always something about the other person that, if the relationship ever ended, I could focus on to move on. Love is a numbers game after all, and if you want to find the right person, you shouldn’t linger around the lost.

It’s a strange feeling when you realize that you’re willingly putting yourself in harm’s way. It’s one of the great ironies of love — selfish selflessness — you want someone for yourself so badly that you’re willing to risk yourself. Love is initially irrational, after all. You have as much control over it as your own name — sure, you can change it, but you didn’t choose it. So when you meet someone with a lot of potential, your options are limited:

I know my feelings won’t change, so what if hers change? There’s nothing I dislike about her, so I’m pretty sure I’ll be devastated. Should I have my guard up? Should I be less open about my feelings? Should I tone down my affection?

What should you do when you meet the person whose absence is unfathomable? I fully believe in loving someone without regard to reciprocation, in giving with no thought to receiving. But it’s hard. It’s so hard. And yet you have to believe that the right person will appreciate your efforts and reciprocate (eventually if not already). Ultimately you’ll regret the things you don’t do more than the things you do. So even if things don’t work out, at least you know that it didn’t. And if you did everything you could, that’s all you can expect to do. No regrets.

There’s also the reality that the time we have with our loved ones is temporary. Whether you’re with someone for one month or 50 years, one day it’ll all be over. All you can do is make the most of the moments you have. You can’t let the fear of the future affect the present because these moments are few and fleeting. It’s like life: you don’t know how much time you’ve got, but if you live in perpetual fear of dying, it’ll pass you by.

There’s a better quote: love is when someone else’s needs trump your own. I like that it acknowledges that your needs are always a factor, that love isn’t entirely selfless. And that one day, through no choice of your own, you may find someone whose happiness becomes more important than your own, someone for whom you’ll be selfishly selfless, despite your fears. And the only choice you can make is whether to learn now or later that love, like life, is worth the pain.

I don’t know why, but I had a hard time falling asleep last night. I was still up at 7am and the sun was starting to rise, which always makes me feel crappy, like waking up late for a test, except the opposite. So I got up, went downstairs, greeted my parents, had a glass of OJ, got back in bed, and tried to fall sleep. Eyes closed, I knew I’d be up a while longer. My head felt numb, thirsting for sleep but fighting the adrenaline that was starting to kick in. And so my mind wandered. And wandered.

I opened my eyes, staring at the empty ceiling of my dim room, at the traces of light creeping in, reminding me of my parents who were starting their day as mine was ending. A crappy feeling. My vision started blurring as I got drowsier. So my mind wandered. And wandered.

And suddenly, I felt old, like I was bedridden in a nursing home. It felt so real, like death was just around the corner. I began looking back at my life, cumulatively at first, thinking about people I would miss. Moments I enjoyed. And then searching for details. Wondering if there was anything that I regretted. Anything I wanted to do. Anything I hadn’t done.

And then terror struck. The realization that it was all going to be over soon. That there was nothing I could do to change anything, so was I happy with how things played out? I didn’t know; I couldn’t think clearly. My mind was paralyzed. I felt helpless. I wanted to do something. Anything! Hug someone, kiss someone, talk to someone. But no one was around. I thought of how the world would continue to go on without me. How I wanted so much to be there. And all the lives that were starting as mine was ending. A crappy feeling.

My eyes became watery, which took me out of the moment because – well – I rarely cry. And I was surprised by how terrified I was with death imminent, considering how optimistic I am about my life and how, when I thought about death in the past, I didn’t fear it. I always thought I would embrace death, thankful for the opportunities I had. And yet, I couldn’t get the thought out of my mind that it was all about to end. Until I fell asleep.

A while back I had a conversation with a friend about “true love”: she argued that love develops over time, that she didn’t believe in love at first sight. Every bone in my body disagrees with her. Love, to me, is an emotional spectrum, like happiness, varying in length and intensity. You can be completely consumed by your feelings for a person, and you can be merely content with their company. Your feelings can last forever or for a moment.

But it’s all love.

When you are initially attracted to a stranger, you create an idea in your head of what that person is like, and it’s possible to fall in love with that idea. As you get to know them, you’ll remain in love if they continue to meet your expectations. Or, if they exceed your expectations, your love will grow stronger. Or you’ll fall out of love if they disappoint.

“True love,” then, is love that has endured. The odds are against it, and it is precious because of its rarity. But that doesn’t mean that short-lasting love is any less honest or beautiful. The problem with the term “true love” is that it makes love seem like a destination when it’s not — like happiness, love is the journey.

When I’m sure about how I feel about a girl, I have no qualms about telling her I love her, no matter how long I’ve known her and regardless of whether she responds in kind. Sure, my feelings may change, but in the moment it was true and honest. I want to share emotional truth, even if it’s risky.

But, in my opinion, people who hold back from giving love are taking a bigger risk. They risk not appreciating the people and things that matter to them before they’re no longer around. I live in a perpetual state of gratitude, not because I’m strong-minded but because I’m afraid — except I’m more afraid of regret than of looking like a fool.

My friend Sean wrote an insightful essay –  “When Good Things Come to an End” — about his dog that recently passed away, a radio show he loved that ended, and why you shouldn’t hold yourself back from giving love. I’ll end my essay with an excerpt from his:

[T]he things we choose to let become important ARE strange, surreal and often times silly. And one must be grounded enough to know which ones are which. But because of this awareness, I often hold myself back from falling in love with someone, some animal or something. I force myself to see this affection through the lens of others and cower in embarrassment. Piper was only a dog, but goddamit I loved her. And I loved that radio show. And I loved Startropics on the NES. And I loved every page of Tom Sawyer. And I loved my grandpa. All lined up in a row its easy to suss out the ridiculous ones, and it doesn’t take a moment to assign them importance. But what I’m talking about isn’t importance. I’m talking about love, and whether or not something coaxes it out of you — even the tiniest of drops. A life full of love, from the silly to the essential does a good life make.

How would your life change if you found out the exact date of your death?

On CNN today, Rick Sanchez was talking to survivors of the Hudson River landing, asking them what was going through their heads when they thought they were going to die. I’m sure you wouldn’t be surprised to know that there was a lot of praying going on. Hearing this, my friend RJ, knowing my agnosticism, asked me if I would have prayed in their situation. I thought for a moment, and then responded firmly: “Nope.”

But I don’t want to talk about my response, or about prayer, or about religion. I want to talk about that moment before I responded. I didn’t pause to think about my answer; I already knew my answer. I paused because I wanted to imagine myself facing impending death. What would go through my mind? Who would I think of? Would I be afraid? I knew I wouldn’t pray, so what would I do?

I’m not going to pretend I have any idea what I would do or think in that situation, but I know that I wouldn’t feel sad. I’ve lived a long and fortunate life. I was raised by a loving and supportive family, surrounded with plenty of opportunities that molded me into the person I am today. And even if that wasn’t the case, why should I be sad? Because my life was cut short? Marcus Aurelius reminds us that the present is all we have:

“That the longest-lived and those who will die soonest lose the same thing. The present is all that they can give up, since that is all you have, and what you do not have, you cannot lose.”

Most likely, I’m not dying anytime soon. And neither are you. But a recent psychological study suggests that people are ultimately happier when they think about the end of pleasurable experiences, because they are more grateful for what they have and are more motivated to take advantage of their remaining time:

“Finite ends seem to inspire people to think carefully about what it is they have, because soon enough, and usually sooner than we would like to think, it will be gone.”

So how are you going to spend your remaining time? I know what I’m going to do with mine. I believe this life is all we’ve got, and I would like to help others live fulfilling lives. My motivation has had traces of selfishness in the past: wanting to be remembered for making a difference. I’ve since realized how petty a goal that is. But what if I don’t get the opportunity to have the kind of impact I would like?

Instead, my goal in life is simple: to create more value than I consume.

Even if it’s as simple as leaving a room a little better than I found it.

My dad

He embodies discipline, unsurprising since he almost became a priest. He often told me stories of his ambition as a student. How he was always #1 in his classes. How he would aggressively compete with his top classmates. But he can also be stubborn when he thinks he’s right. He was supposed to be a lawyer until he got into an argument with a teacher in front of his law school class and stormed out. His classmates tried to talk him into apologizing, but he refused to return to the class because he was convinced he was right. And yet somehow, he never loses his cool when we debate, despite my increasingly impatient tone.

He always respects my privacy, in an extreme sense; he never displays an interest in my personal life. He would knock on my bedroom door before entering. He would stay upstairs when I had friends over. He isn’t a very personal conversationalist, preferring instead to talk about business or history or current events, and my car-rides with him as a child were often quiet, or lecture-like, or some lame joke he heard somewhere. He likes to laugh at his own jokes, even if you’re not laughing with him. Not just a chuckle, but a whole-hearted guffaw. And, red-faced, he struggles to calm down, sometimes concluding with a violent cough. But he always expresses his affection. When he enters a room, we give each other a high five, or else he rubs my shoulders if I’m preoccupied. Every night, he would come by my room to say good night and “I love you.”

He used to have a temper. Like many parents of his generation, he believed in belting as a proper form of punishment. And when it was whipping time, he was red-faced, like when he laughs at his own jokes, without the pleasantness. But one day – I think it was 6th grade – he said we had outgrown it, and he never hit us again. In fact, he’s rarely lost his cool since then.

I nominate him as the patron saint of husbands. After 2 failed marriages, he married my mom, whom he’s been with for 24 years. My mom can be sassy and bossy toward him, criticizing his choice of clothes or commanding him to a thankless errand, and he never complains. He has the ability to disarm her anger with a corny joke, followed by his self-congratulatory laugh.

As a child, I used to think that he had the strongest handshake in the world, and my futile arm-wrestling matches confirmed his superhuman strength. I thought he was fearless, walking bravely into dark rooms; I thought he was incapable of crying. Then I saw him cry – the one and only time – when we watched Casper many years ago. During a particularly sad scene, I turned to look at him. His face looked normal, but his eyes were misty. I wasn’t completely sure, and I didn’t bring it up, until weeks later, when I overheard him confess to a friend that he hates that movie because it made him cry. He laughed.

More recently, I learned my dad is terrified of the dentist, though I haven’t seen this firsthand. And my mom told me that my dad is scared to be home alone because he hears things. His handshake is still incredibly firm though.

My mom

She’s the yin to my dad’s yang. If my dad is the intellectual, my mom is the emotional. If my dad is impersonal, my mom is uber-personal, always curious, always wanting to be involved. I remember that she wished she had a daughter (in addition, not in place of), and I wish she did too, so that my brother and I could’ve had a mediator, and so that my mom could’ve had her “best friend.” She used to always say that when she wanted to get something out of me. Come on; tell your best friend. As I got older, I tried to be that for her.

I remember the first time I saw my mom as not my mom. Not long ago, I went with her to her high school reunion in Vegas. Everyone went up to give a quick speech, giving quick updates of their lives: where they live, what their children are doing, and sometimes a few words about their high school days. When my mom went up, she recalled how shy she was when they were students, with nervous body language resembling a young girl speaking in front of her class. And in that moment, I saw the little sister I always wanted.

She puts her family before herself, always. And as a result, she works incredibly hard. Two jobs, most of her life. One of her jobs at the moment is at the health center of USC, working directly with students and student athletes. The experience has helped her understand my generation and my brother and I much better, and I’m glad she’s enjoying the experience. She especially gets a kick out of people recognizing her as my mother, which she’ll always tell me about, and which happens surprisingly often; I only went to the health center once in 4 years.

Oftentimes, I feel obliged to become wealthy as soon as possible, so my mom can stop working and I can pay my parents back for everything they’ve done for me. But I’ve realized that their goal in all of this is for me to be happy. And what makes me happy is helping others have the opportunities for happiness that I’ve had. And I shouldn’t have money as a top priority, while I’m figuring out how exactly I can be most useful.

She always had the right impression of past girlfriends, not afraid to tell me I could do better. I should have listened. And when things ended with girlfriends she liked, she would ask what happened, and then would encourage me to find better. Which, by the time we spoke, was already my plan. She has a tendency to talk to me like I’m still a child, like most moms do. I can’t count how many times she’s told me not to eat in public the way I eat at home: filling my plate obscenely. Even last week, when I moved into my new apartment, she made sure that I was being a good roommate. A humbling reminder: we are children after all.