Starting Over: I've conceived an idea. A potentially powerful idea. There's this concept that's held aloft in the culture of idealicly "manly" men that a beard is a symbol of strength and masculinity. Well how would anyone know that I've earned my beard? How should another person know that it's a mark of strength? In this day and age of fashion decisions and fads, I want my appearance to mean something. I didn't choose to be where I am today. Every single day right now is a struggle the likes of which I have never known. But I get to choose how I meet my foes. I get to choose to shake in my boots or charge forward headlong and meet challenges face-to-face. I've decided that from this day forward: I will swear an oath to myself. If I can't look into my own eye in the mirror at the end of the day, and truly say I've tried hard to further who I am as a person: then the next morning I will shave my beard again. I start over today: no weakness allowed. Nothing but upward movement. If you see me with a beard, you can know that every day I've had it has been a day I have grown as a person. I will grow stronger, smarter, better, happier, and become a more fulfilled human being. So it is sworn. Let me be labeled "oathbreaker" from this day forward if I don't prove it so. "Once more into the fray, Into the last good fight I'll ever know, Live and die on this day, Live and die on this day."
