I got expelled from nursery school because I sh!t on a bunch of other little boys.

We were all playing some sort of pile-up game and I was on top. One thing led to another.

They sent me home on the short bus. I was the only one on the bus because it was the middle of the day. Maybe this is my first memory.

Three years old. This is the moment I booted up.

I got out and my mom was waiting for me. My mom had polio as a tiny girl. So for her to be waiting for me, standing up, in the driveway with arms crossed, was a big deal.

“What did you do?” she said.

How does a three year old explain? I can’t remember what I said. How do I explain the urges my body had?

My need to just constantly sh!t on everything around me. Ruin everything I touch.

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I lied. I wrote about the gatekeepers. The people or institutions that block us from achieving our dreams.

Most of the time I don’t know what my dreams are. Why do we need to have a passion?

I don’t need to send a spaceship to Mars. Or a yacht. I don’t need to see the beauty of the bottom of the ocean. Or to own a football team. None of these things appeal to me.

I wrote the gatekeepers are: parents, jobs, bosses, schools, teachers, peers, government. Maybe more. For each person, it’s different.

But I left out the two most important gatekeepers. The things that are GUARANTEED to prevent my joy.

They try to make me miserable, thinking that only misery is the maze towards happiness.

The body.

Right now I can’t hear out of my right ear. I have wax in it. Maybe from using the headset too much. I should go see a doctor.

If a woman whispered, “I love you” in my right ear this moment, I would not hear her.

In my left eye I have something called “floaters.” At first I couldn’t see out of it one morning. Then it cleared up and I saw these little black squiggles.

Sometimes it looks like bugs are crawling around and I even do a double-take. But it’s just these floaters. I should go see an eye doctor. I read it’s because I should drink more water.

A few months ago I coughed wrong. Some muscle hit some nerve and my left leg went numb. There was also a lot of pain all the time.

After a week or two it got better. But now, six months later, I still feel the numbness in my toes. I should probably see a doctor.

I could go on.

We’re stuck in this garbage bag of trash we call a body. So whatever we can do to make it better is worth it.

The mind.

Probably every day I experience worry, stress, anger, and confusion. The four deadly horseman.

Can you list right now something you feel stress about? Anger about? Worry about? Confusion about? I can.

But these are just gatekeepers as well. The things that I am angry about prevent me from experiencing joy.

The things that I worry about are the gatekeepers for peace.

We all experienced the curse of being born. And we are all trying to struggle through the mystery of life – fooling ourselves into thinking the mystery is death.

The mind evolved to protect us. But it didn’t evolve to give us joy.

So it gets angry because it thinks the things we are angry at might hurt us.

It just doesn’t know. Poor mind. It’s just a tool.

The body and the mind are our gatekeepers. Everything outside of that is the real me.

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I’m guilty. I write about failure porn all the time. I’m a failure pornographer.

I lost X, blah blah blah.

I did A, B, and C and then Z happened. Blah blah. I’m in the gutter. I’m crying. I give all my things away. I was suicidal.

Sometimes I wish I could live life as if I knew I was going to die tomorrow. Sometimes I wish I were dead yesterday.

A failure either wounds us:

• Gives us something to blame.
• Something to complain about.
• An excuse (“I can’t do this!”)
• A reason to lie in bed and cry (speaking for myself only)

Or a failure makes us look at our actions and try to improve them. Makes us wiser.

Wounds or wisdom. I choose.

You would think all the people who are angry and stressed and scared would be very wise.

But when I’m angry I often slip into justification and then that slip turns into a dark fall that is hard to climb out of.

For a long time, and still now, I often take the things that make me most angry and scared and I view them as wounds.

I want to get past my gatekeepers. The body that imprisons me. The mind that holds the key with its angers and fears.

Give me the key! So I can fly out and see the rest of the universe. Where I suspect the real me is waiting to be happy and free.