And we curve them and mold them in such a way that that we hope we can get to something of a life well lived. And if we're lucky, we get something which is closely aligned at the end of the year when we get to the end of December and we look back at the previous year, we get to something which is closely aligned to that vision which we set out for at the start of the year. But it's possible that that vision wasn't entirely correct or what more likely is that along the way to pursue that vision, It was like a mirage and we were lured in a different direction and we didn't even realize it. Even for those who are lucky, for those people who get to live out a year, aligned with that vision, happiness itself, it's what we're all searching for. That happiness itself can be very, very elusive. So I take this time for reflection and I give my thoughts some space to breed because ultimately the quality of those thoughts, that's what determines the quality of my life. Now stay with me, I know I'm getting slightly heavy on this. The quality of our thoughts determine the quality of our life. So think about that for a second. So states like happiness, stress, anger, suffering, these are all mental events. These have to happen in our mind, in our consciousness for them to be real. Now I'm not so naive to think that a year of COVID where it's, you know, devastates our ability to socialize and social isolation is so prevalent. I'm not saying that that has no effect whatsoever on your thoughts. Like the world obviously shapes our body and our body shapes our mind. But for those things to matter, for that sadness, for that stress to manifest and for that to matter, it has to appear in our consciousness. So if you take COVID, there's a a couple of ways of looking at it, you can spend 2021 and you can try to change the world and you know, great, some people will, they'll come up with a vaccine. Or maybe you're a non-believer in the lockdowns and the strategies that governments are pursuing at the moment, and you can try to change other people's beliefs to match your own beliefs. But two of those are very difficult paths to tread. Ultimately, what's going to be a lot easier for you to do is to control the quality your thoughts. You can cease to respond to life in ways that produce needless suffering for yourself and those around you. Like us to bring it back to a cycling example, like earlier this year you heard in the podcast, I was warming up for a race, routine enough Saturday evening race, and I crashed and my bike broke. Stupid crash, totally my fault. My bike smashed, really really annoying. But I get to choose how I respond to that because the world around me has chosen to crash at that moment. Whatever sequence of events led to that crash, it was out of my control in that moment. But I do get to choose that response. I can go home, I can fuck, and I can course, and I can be miserable, and I can let it affect the quality of my thoughts, and then seep into into the quality of the relationships around me or a compressed pause and go, you know what, accidents happen. Give yourself a break. How can you get a lend of another bike and jump back on the horse tomorrow? And it has so much less drama. That's such a, the impact of that event on those around me is minimum. As opposed to that same event happening, a metron and absolute, stroppy and coming home and everyone I interact with and bringing them down, it's just a horrible, horrible place to be. And this is why I started the podcast when I talked about this softer version of an unexamined life isn't worth living because I feel like the unexamined life brings unneeded drama. Like you take that, you know, some people and drama attracts drama.