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I came across some old writing today… thoughts I had penned twenty-seven years ago, which I’d completely forgotten about. It reminded me of the intense loneliness I felt back then… that inner despair and pessimism.

For weeks now I have been asking myself how I managed to screw things up so badly… how despite having been given one of the best educations money could buy… how I just ended up such a failure. But those writings now have reminded me of my state of mind back then, when making good decisions really mattered. I must have been suffering from serious anxiety and depression then. In truth, when I went to college my tutors picked up on it, and prescribed counselling. But back then, I wasn’t ready to change. Back then, I broke everything I touched.

So now I’m thinking: probably only my faith could liberate me. Only my faith could make me whole. Only my faith could carry me all these years, despite the ongoing alienation from those I loved. Only faith could rescue me from my negative morass.

And what has sent me back into that spiral of gloom? Only comparing myself to others, digging into the past, viewing their worldly achievements. Only wandering from the path which says “be humble.” Only digging over the past, to revisit each of my mistakes. But now I’ve recalled my state of mind then: I was in no place to plan and plot out my life.

Those days are long gone now. Perhaps they made me what I am. Perhaps had those moments not touched me I would never have had the need or desire to take up this path. Perhaps I recognised the truth better in those days: that this was the only path that could set me free.

Only the One could liberate me.