To the reader, for whom I care very much,
I bid you hello! Do not be startled; had I intended for this journal to be kept a secret, I would not have left it in such an obvious location! It was my every intention that you would find this one day, and that you would seek to know its contents.
It is my earnest hope that you are doing well, and that life is treating you kindly. Although I wish I could say with certainty that you would give me an affirmative answer, experience has taught me that, for most, there is something happening in their lives that they rather wish was not. However serious or unserious it may be, problems are still problems, and they weigh all of us down all the same if we grant them too much unproductive attention.
I can very much relate, you know. Back when I was far, far younger than I am now (which is not to call myself ancient, but…), I remember vividly the days where it felt as though nothing was going right. Conferences with nobles I would rather not be around, holding day court where problems were bestowed unto me that I just did not have a way to solve, and then also attempting to cope with the fact that I had sent my very sister into an exile that I was rapidly coming to the conclusion she did not deserve. All of it was quite difficult to manage, at times, and I was no stranger to feeling as though the world was bearing down upon my shoulders.
Whether or not the world is bearing down upon yours, or if it is simply the case that something in your world specifically is going quite wrong, I am here to offer you what help I can from so far away.
The first thing I would like to say is that I am proud of you.
Yes, you. Although I may not be able to speak to you face to face, or to listen to your story in quite the way I would like to, there are a few things I know about you already purely by the fact that you are reading this, the primary of which is that you have made it this far. Throughout struggle, strife, trial, error, and hardship, you have made it to where you are today—and that is no small feat! No matter where you may be in your life, the fact that you are still moving forward after so many years is a testament to your resiliency, something that I do not think should be overlooked.
The second thing I would like to say, though, is quite lengthy—and you will have to forgive me for being so wordy.
A wise philosopher in your world once said that “The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.” It is such a simple saying, and yet, I believe it possesses a lot of meaning. Although it is true that many external factors dictate parts of the happiness of our lives, perhaps the largest and most important is our way of thinking. Because if there is one being that we have to live our entire lives with, it is ourselves—and we can choose, therein, exactly how we treat that individual. On one hoof, we can choose to see the difficulty in every opportunity, to relentlessly search for our faults and whip ourselves for each one that we find. We can choose to tell ourselves that there will never be anything good for us, that we have done nothing worth being proud of, and that we are, for all intents and purposes, without worth. We can say that we have done all we can to improve our own situation, and that since it has not worked yet, it never will—or that since we have not achieved the thing we so desperately want to yet, that it is utterly impossible.
All of these are things we can think to ourselves—and I would know, because I most certainly have before! But I can also say with utmost certainty that my quality of life when I surrounded myself with such thoughts was utterly terrible. I was never pleased with myself, I never thought of myself as worth anything more than mockery or scorn, and I was firmly of the opinion that Equestria needed someone else to lead it—anyone other than myself.
However, on the other hoof, we can choose to see the opportunity in every difficulty. To examine our faults and our flaws with a critical eye and determine then that we will do everything in our power to learn from them. We can choose to forgive ourselves for being imperfect, and that even despite our imperfection, that we have still done and accomplished things that are worth being proud of, no matter how large or how small. We can choose to, instead of seeing nothing but our failures, to see said failures as methods we have discovered to not achieve what it is we desire; and we can most certainly choose to be happy with ourselves as we are in our journeys, even if we are not quite where we want to be.
All of these are things we can think to ourselves as well—and I would know, because I most certainly do so nowadays! The quality of my life when I strive to reframe the difficulties around me into things I can learn from, into experiences that teach me what I do and do not want to be, has been nothing short of beautiful. I found peace with who I was, what I had done, and what could potentially come next.
Now, I fully recognize that such a shift in mindset is not easy—if it were, everyone would have done so by now! However, what I would like to assure you of, dear reader, is that it is possible. No matter how bleak things seem, no matter how difficult life gets, it can—and oftentimes does—get better! There is another philosopher in your world who once said that “Time crumbles things. Everything grows old and is forgotten under the power of time.” This is no less true for your struggles, difficulties, and hardships than it is for anything else!
You matter. You have worth. You are important—and you should never be someone you neglect in your journey.
I remember my days of being a student of Star-Swirl the Bearded, when I was panicked and stressed about getting things exactly correct in every single sense of the word. So terrified was I—and Luna too—of disappointing him, and of scoring poorly on our exams or essays, that we once agreed to conspire to cheat on one of them. We devised a system whereby we could signal to the other the answer on any given question if we did not know it, and we thought that, by our powers combined, we just might be able to pass a ridiculously difficult exam he had given us.
Well, needless to say (this is Star-Swirl, after all), he discovered our dishonesty—and both of us were deathly afraid. He called us into a meeting, and both of us were certain when we trotted in that we were going to be disowned as his students—that he was going to be infuriated, anguished, and most of all, disappointed in us to the highest degree possible. Instead, however, what we found was that he was concerned. He asked us why we thought it necessary to cheat; we replied that we were afraid of disappointing him through failure. It was in that moment that he said something to us that will stick with me forever—he actually apologized to us. He stated that if his teaching had taught us that demonstrating our knowledge to him was more important than demonstrating it to ourselves, that he had failed in his duty—and thereafter resolved that he would change things so that we might learn more effectively. There was no punishment, no anger, no anguish, not even any disappointment—it was a simple meeting that came to a simple, yet unexpected conclusion (though he did warn us not to cheat ever again).
I tell you this story because life can sometimes be very similar—when we live it exclusively to try and please others, we oftentimes end up only learning how to do just that—which, although it is a helpful skill to know in some situations, is never a good way to live your life because of the simple fact that it is impossible to always please others. When you live your life with yourself also in mind, however, and when you apply the lessons you learn to the betterment of yourself, you will oftentimes find that you will be much happier, and much more at peace. This is not to say that you should only ever think of yourself in your life—selfishness is not an admirable trait. However, it is to say that you should not neglect yourself either or treat yourself as someone not worth pleasing—after all, you are the only individual who will ever have to live with yourself for your entire life!
That being said, never worry yourself with the criticisms of those who do not know or love you for you. Those who content themselves to mocking or scorning others for that which they themselves will never even attempt will never be worth your time, effort, or energy. Because it is not the critic to whom the credit belongs. They know not your struggles, your difficulties, your challenges, or how far you have come. All they see is a version of you they twist and distort into something you quite simply are not. Those who need to put others down in an attempt to make themselves feel bigger have only failed themselves; pay no mind to the hot air that leaves their mouths, for the only information worth gleaning from it is that it is not worth listening to.
…
I wish I could talk to you face to face. To let you know just how proud of you I truly am, and how well you are truly doing. But because I cannot, I will leave you with this:
I dare you to live a good life. To face each day with a smile—and when that is not possible, to go and do your very best anyway. I dare you to be kind to others, even when it is difficult. To be humble when you find triumph, and undaunted when you face defeat. I dare you to strive to be, in all things, indefatigable; to allow nothing to stand in the way of you achieving your goals. I dare you to forgive in your heart those who have wronged you, and to free yourself from bitterness and shame. I dare you to let joy, hope, and happiness into your heart, for it is those three which can make the good times better, and the bad times less sorrowful.
For is there any greater triumph you can have over those who would love to see you fail than to pick yourself back up after each fall with a smiling face? Is there any greater rude gesture made to life when it seeks to stop you from achieving your aims than to press on in the face of hardship and struggle?
Perhaps. But I have yet to find it.
Go out and conquer, dear reader—and know that, no matter what may come, you will always be in my thoughts.
With much love,
Princess Celestia