“Will we be extinguished? What difference does it make then, the ones of us who had plans, what does it matter the work we’ve done? The children we’ve raised? He looked pointedly at Olhado. “What will it matter then, that you have such a big happy family, if you’re all erased in one instant by that … bomb? “Not one moment of my life with my family has been wasted,” said Olhado quietly. “But the point of it is to go on, isn’t it? To connect with the future?” “That’s one part, yes,” said Olhado. “But part of the purpose of it is now, is the moment. And part of it is the web of connections. Links from soul to soul. If the purpose of life was just to continue into the future, then none of it would have meaning, because it would be all anticipation and preparation. There’s fruition, Grego. There’s the happiness we’ve already had. The happiness of each moment. The end of our lives, even if there’s no forward continuation, no progeny at all, the end of our lives doesn’t erase the beginning.”

“So here is why I write what I do: We all have futures. We all have pasts. We all have stories. And we all, every single one of us, no matter who we are and no matter what’s been taken from us or what poison we’ve internalized or how hard we’ve had to work to expel it –– we all get to dream.”

“In the end, we make our choices on our own. And no matter how stupid they are, we have to live—or die—with what we’ve done. Sometimes choosing our moment of death is the only freedom we have left.”

“I know this because the worst has happened. The thing I can’t live with… has happened. And for all our back and forth— and all the things we’ve said and done to each other… there’s one thing that I’ll never be able to tell anyone now… The one thing! The one thing I should have told you. But now I can’t… It wasn't worth it.”

“We’ve all had to rewrite the scripts of our lives the last few weeks. We’ve learnt a lot and we’ve had to figure out what’s important, what matters – what really matters. It’s been quite a time.”

“But then I think about what I’ve learned here in the last year, and I don’t mean in my classes, but what I’ve learned from watching my friends face their futures and search for their purposes. I’ve learned that a storm isn’t always just bad weather, and a fire can be the start of something new. I’ve found out that there are a lot more shades of gray in this world than I ever knew about. I’ve learned that sometimes, when you’re afraid but you keep on moving forward, that’s the biggest kind of courage there is. And finally, I’ve learned that life isn’t really about failure and success. It’s about being present, in the moment when big things happen, when everything changes, including yourself. So I would tell us, no matter how bright we think our futures are, it doesn’t matter. Whether we go off to some fancy university or stay home and work. That doesn’t define us. Our purpose on this earth is not a single event, an accomplishment we can check off a list. There is no test. No passing or failing. There’s only us, each moment shaping who we are, into what we will become. So I say forget about the future. Pay attention to now. This moment right now. Let go of expectations. Just be. Then you are free to become something great.”