“Things aren’t going well o,” I told my friend the other day.

And then when I was done listing out the litany of things, she asked, eyes widened in alarm: “So how come you’re so joyful?”

I am at a point where too many things I want to work in certain ways are not working the way I want them to.

I don’t like it. But I am grateful for it.

Because now I have an incredible opportunity to truly practice what I preach.

And it’s also an incredible way to know if I truly believe what I say I believe - in the deepest parts of my core. Or if it’s a convenient series of beliefs based on things going as I want.

It’s the reason I have not been depressed, even though I am going through a deeper trial now than the one that plunged me deep and made me consider suicide briefly in 2016. It’s the reason I have been confident, moving, calm, at ease, even taking a vacation in the midst of all of it, and not losing a night’s sleep or a spring in my step.

It’s because my heart is formed, my gaze is fixed, and my spirit is sure.

What I feel about myself, my life and my future doesn’t depend on what is happening around me. It depends on what is happening inside of me.

It’s a privilege to be able to confirm that to myself.