I want to write you something new; ever since I can remember, I’ve always been saying the same things to you: that I don’t like myself, that I need to make myself into a person I like before I can do anything else, that I have doubts about everything, that I am confused, unmotivated, etc. I want to tell you that things have begun to change.

   The day you sent me a message saying that you didn’t want to talk to me, a person I went to highschool with handed me a flyer for a class. The flyer said the class would increase focus, reduce anxiety and stress, improve self esteem, give quality of life, strengthen inner self, enhance interpersonal skills, etc. I was really unhappy that day; things have been getting worse for a while. I’ve been becoming more and more unhappy, stressed, worried, and confused. On that day it was really bad and I said to myself, why not try the class? So I signed up.

   On October 20 the class started. The teacher is from India and the class is called The Art of Living. We did all sorts of games and things and learned some philosophies about why we get upset, confused, and stressed. Sudarshan Kriya, a meditation technique, is an important part of the course. The course was really good but I’ve really learned a lot about myself since the class has ended.

   I want to tell you some of the things I’ve just started to understand and some of my plans for the future.

   Ever since I was young I wanted to be older. I really liked my brothers and wanted to be part of their games and lives so I always tried to make myself grow up faster. I think this is the beginning of many of the issues I have to deal with now. I have never learned to live in the present moment—I always plan, and look forward. When I realized I was missing my childhood, I started looking back and regretting. In this way I taught myself to be scared of the future and to regret things I’d done in the past. This is why I am indecisive; I have been defining every choice I make in terms of what I might loose instead of what good things could happen.

　This negative way of viewing the world has produced many beliefs deep inside of me. I think I thought that I had to be crazy like毕加索 or贝多芬 or尼采 in order to fulfill my purpose, or create something of great worth to the world. I thought that I had to make myself unhappy if I wanted to be like甘地 or马丁•路德•金 or the principal of my school. I thought to be great I had to be hard, cold, unhappy, and extreme.

    As far as relationships go, I was confused about them, too. I think that I thought that relationships take you away from your purpose, make you weak, and distract you from understanding truth and what it means to be alive. I thought relationships stopped you from becoming who you should become and doing the things you should do. This view made me scared of love; the more people I love, the farther I get from becoming a great person. I think the people I saw around me made me think that to fall in love and to get married was settling for something because you weren’t strong enough to be alone.

   These implicit views are changing in my mind. I’m finally beginning to understand the ideas of happiness, love, and peace. I had defined these words as weaknesses, now I see that they are the source of all strength.

   When I look at 甘地 and 贝多芬, I still want to be like them. But now I realize that the way to do it is to love myself, make myself happy, balance myself, and act like the person I want to be right now. I don’t have to wait until I graduate school to start acting like the man I want to be, I can start now. Balance is strength, love and goodness is true power. Living in the present moment.

   Just as I understand this now, I also understand that my fears were keeping me from understanding the meaning of love and of a relationship. I was scared to attachment because I thought it was an illusion. This made me run from relationships—my idea was that I should have fewer relationships and I would have fewer people to loose. This was a fear of responsibility. Now I realize that loving someone makes you stronger, not weaker. I don’t need to become who I want to be without love, then find love. I now understand that being in a relationship with the right person helps you on your path to becoming the best version of yourself. It doesn’t make you worse or weak, it makes you stronger. It lets you become better than you could have become on your on and it is an opportunity for you to help someone else become their best self.

   Now I know that the reason I was always unable to you the way you deserve to be loved is that I haven’t been willing to love myself the way I deserve to be loved. I have been dragging you down, but now I know that I can pull you up. I didn’t listen to all the things you told me about taking care of myself and being balanced because I was in love with the idea that my life would be a tragedy and that I couldn’t be happy.

    I told you that once I graduated I could start becoming the person I wanted to be, then once I did that, I could start living life. Now I realize that this is wrong. I can be happy now. I can be who I want to be now. I won’t use this situation (being stuck in a town where I don’t want to be) to feed my resentment, sadness, anger, and sense of being wronged. I’ll change my life now. I don’t need to be in a bigger town or in a foreign country to be happy. I don’t need to walk for a year to find myself. I will make myself happy now. My dreams will unfold from there. I’m finally beginning to believe that I can be happy and that I can love myself. I am destroying my old negative and extreme beliefs and replacing them with love, happiness, balance, and peace.

    I want you to know that you are helping me change my life from a shell into something beautiful. I am redefining myself. I am taking my general fearful and negative definitions of things and changing them into brave, clear, happy definitions. Like dominos（ 多米诺骨牌）, this new definition will affect the way I look at everything. Love is an opportunity, not loss or compromise. Good for the world starts by doing good to yourself. Though I didn’t understand it fully at the time, I now see what you mean when you said “how can you help others if you can’t help yourself?” I now understand that to love the world, you must love yourself too—you can’t try to love everyone around you if you hate yourself. To do good for the world, you must treat yourself well. To make changes that benefit the world, you must make changes that benefit yourself.

    for the first time in a long time, I am excited about the future in many different ways. Whether we ever date again or not, our relationship will be better than ever before, because now I can give you energy, can make you better, can love you all the way, without doubt. We won’t misunderstand each other anymore because you will know that now I am on the way to understanding myself and all I feel toward you is love, kindness, respect, and joy, and I now understand that all you feel the same things for me.

    You should understand that I’m writing now not because of fear of loosing you but because for the first time I truly understand what has been going on in my mind and between us. I am writing to you because of excitement. I am happy. I am looking forward to a future that is brighter than yesterday, not darker. I was always scared to make promises and commitments, but now I want to make you a promise (not because you asked me to or because of pressure I feel from fear). I promise that our relationship (whether it includes romance or not) will be better, happier, healthier, clearer, and more generous. I will make you feel like when you are with me, you are a better Deng Wei, and I commit to being my best self when I am with you. I will enjoy every moment I spend with you, talking to you, or reading what you write to me without being obsessed with the future or the past. This will make the present beautiful, and making the present beautiful will make the futur! e beautiful. I promise to make, myself, you, and the whole world a happier and better place with each breath I take.

    I have put forth effort to change, and I have begun to change. I have worked to become satisfied with myself and it is beginning to work. Thank you for pushing me to be better. Now that I am on this road, the present looks brighter and so does the future. I feel transformed, and I want you to experience the change. I ask you honestly for forgiveness for my stubbornness, misunderstanding, and fear. I have forgiven myself. I ask you to remain part of my life and to allow me to remain part of yours.
I hope you are healthy, happy, and at peace. I expect to hear from you soon.

 Love