**Finding Potential and Overcoming Adversity**

I thought I'd do well, I thought I'd be like okay, but it wasn't until that moment, the moment then I saw that things were in my control. Not everything, not everything can be in your control, very little things can. But there were some things that I could control, there were things that I could learn, there were things that I could practice, there were things that I could do things that were within my realm of possibility, my potential, the potential that you know others saw in me. You know, I never recognized and it was in that moment that I saw the potential that I had in myself, you know, I recognized that, you know people had said that I had a good voice for a while and I was like maybe I can do something with that, you know my brother was an artist sounds like maybe there's some art potential in me.

**Discovering a New Perspective**

I draw from YouTube a lot, I see that I'm like maybe I can do that, maybe I can do that. It's just like those simple ideas, simple change of mindset even then I didn't realize what it was and I didn't realize where it was going to lead me all I realized was that like maybe I can do something, maybe I can act upon it, maybe I can change my life, maybe I can improve where I am. That's the entire song of my life is just I'm going to try, I'm going to try, and I'm gonna fail, I'm gonna fail a lot, I'm gonna fail a lot but that's never gonna stop me trying.

**Finding Strength in Pain**

No one's ever been through what I've been through, no one knows the pain that I've been through and no one knows how far I'm willing to go to do what I want to do. Pain doesn't define you, it's how you respond to the pain that defines you, it's how you take away from that, that defines you, it's it's how you move forward in your life from pain that defines you. Whether that's emotional or physical.

**Breaking the Cycle of Anger and Pain**

I don't believe in the benefits of revenge, I don't believe that it leads to anything, I'm a big believer in forgiveness, which is odd because I'm a very spiteful person but not not excessively like just about as much as anybody else. It's just like pain, it's so easy to lay blame for pain, it's so easy to point fingers when pain happens, it's so easy to be triggered especially at yourself, and that's a self-destructive cycle, all of it is.

**Moving Forward with Purpose**

It will never get better if you're always seeking a release for anger, you know if anger is your only release for pain then anger is all that you'll have, it's like a muscle that you train, you you'll only ever have more of what you put out from it. But there are things that you don't have control over, obviously like I'm not saying depression is just something that you can control, but there are takeaways you can bring out of it. Don't even have to be positive about it because I sure as wasn't positive when I was coming out of those surgeries, I was angry, I was pissed off, but I wasn't pissed off at any one person, I wasn't pissed off at life, I wasn't pissed off at like things, I was pissed off that I didn't take chances.

**Taking Action and Moving Forward**

I was nothing in my eyes, I was nothing. But I'm not saying don't come out of pain all smiling like yes and more please, like don't do that, that's stupid. Come out of it with a rationalization that you don't need to point fingers, all you need to do is take the steps forward that push you to what you want. Never let anything be taken for granted, don't let any moment get away from you, don't let a single second get away from you.

**Believing in Potential and Possibility**

Never let anyone tell you that you're nothing, never let anyone define your potential, because absolutely anyone can change their life, absolutely anyone can achieve what they want. You don't have to be defined by what others see as your limitations, you can create your own path, you can take the steps towards achieving your dreams.

**Finding Strength and Resilience**

You know I'm not saying don't come out of pain all smiling like yes and more please, but come out of it with a sense of purpose, come out of it knowing that you've been through something and that you're stronger because of it. Don't let anyone tell you that you're nothing, never give up on yourself, always keep moving forward, no matter what obstacles you face.

**The Power of Self-Discovery**

It's not about being perfect, it's not about having everything figured out. It's about taking the next step, making the next move, and trusting in yourself to get through it. Don't be afraid to try new things, don't be afraid to take risks, because that's where the real growth happens.

**Creating a Life of Purpose and Meaning**

That's what I've learned, that's what I'm living by now. Create your own path, create your own purpose, make your own meaning in life. Don't wait for someone else to give you permission or validation, take control of your own destiny. Take the steps towards achieving your dreams, no matter how scary or uncertain they may be.

**The Importance of Self-Belief**

You have to believe in yourself, you have to trust in your own abilities and potential. Don't let anyone else define what's possible for you, don't let anyone tell you that you're not good enough or smart enough. You are capable of amazing things, you just have to believe it.

**The Journey of Self-Discovery**

It's a journey, not a destination. It's about learning, growing, and evolving as a person. It's about discovering your strengths and weaknesses, your passions and interests. It's about finding your purpose and meaning in life.

**Embracing the Unknown**

And most importantly, it's about embracing the unknown. Not knowing what's around the corner, not knowing what challenges or obstacles you'll face along the way. But being brave enough to take on those challenges head-on, with courage, resilience, and determination.

**Creating a Life of Purpose and Fulfillment**

That's what I'm working towards now. Creating a life that is truly mine, a life that reflects my values, passions, and goals. A life that is filled with purpose, meaning, and fulfillment.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat is the worst pain that you've ever been in in your life like honestly ask yourself what is the worst pain that you've ever been in your life everyone's been through pain like of some degree some level like no one has had the worst pain because there's always someone that like the people in the medieval ages when they've been in the iron maiden for thirty days or the cow thing where they get boiled alive the worst physical pain I've ever been in in my life was after my surgery and then to manage my pain they had me in an epidural what it epidural is it's a tap directly into your spinal column at a certain vertebra that injects a painkiller and anesthesia directly into your spinal column so it makes everything from that point down numb so you can't feel a lot of it so I had an epidural to manage that pain but it was like it wasn't enough number one right off the bat and then number two it was making my legs numb so I couldn't walk and that was a big problem so I couldn't move at all I was like this this is weird but okay I'll deal with it I was gonna be bedridden for like two weeks anyway in the hospital basically the nurse and the doctors are like we'll change this up like we want you to like be able to walk and stuff so that they changed my pain medication in the epidural to something different cuz it's just like a big bag in a machine that slowly injects it overtime so they were gonna change it so it increased the painkiller and decrease the anesthesia but there was a mistake in the in the pharmacy and they decreased the anesthesia and decreased the painkillers so when they brought me the new bag I was on no numbing agent and no painkiller it was like basically a saline drip into my spine and so I started telling the doctors that I was in a lot of pain like a lot of pain and nurses and doctors would keep coming in and they would look at the Machine and they'd be like no it's fine it's fine look it's fine you've got no problems with it it's totally fine it's giving you medicine it's giving you medicine at the rate that we wanted to give you and there's no issues with it so what it came down to was I started more and more just being like Doc's nurse I am in incredible unbelievable pain I have just a huge gash in my abdomen that's not being medicated at all it's like I got stabbed with a six-inch so it really hurts and no one would believe me no one not like the nurses that I was with they kind of believed me they kept going to the doctors but the doctors did not believe me and it got to the worst point where a doctor actually came in the room he he was obviously pissed off and just like to us guys just trying to get more pain medication and he comes in and I'm lying in the bed you know I'm just in agony and he comes up to me and he just grabs like full-on grabs with his hand into my incision my incision is from here to here like that line that's the incision and he just grabs around it and he starts feeling for bleeding because he's like maybe there's bleeding and he's feeling around and he just grabs onto and I just start screaming like just screaming in agony because it is the most painful thing and he gives me the most like like derogatory look I've ever seen and I'm just like I'm weeping tears it is just the most agonizing thing he didn't do it out of maliciousness now he did it because he was checking for bleeding obviously so he he was grabbing to feel as if the incision was out like he was he was palpating just to see if there was something wrong with it and he might have been doing it aggressively but then again anything that he would have done would have been incredibly painful and so afterwards he left the room he ordered that I needed to have valium cuz he didn't want to give me more painkillers but he wanted to give me valium to like relax me and put me to sleep and just like knock me out so for those of you who know when I was doing drunk minecraft sometimes when I would get drunk and my face would flush like with with blood I I would get this splotchy mark on my neck like right here and that's because that's a scar when they gave me valium they they wanted me to knock me out but I also had a central line in my neck an arterial line in my neck and what that is is it's a line that ties in directly to your artery so it can measure your heart rate blood pressure and probably other things that I don't know about but when I was on valium and I don't remember doing this at all I was so out of it that I dug into my neck I literally clawed and pulled and scratched and scraped my neck until I pulled the central line out of mine and so I started bleeding incredibly and then they rushed in they fixed me I don't remember any of this by the way I don't remember a thing of this I don't remember doing it I don't remember feeling it I don't remember hurting like it all I remember is that like when I when I finally came to I had a huge like splotchy mark on my neck and they were mad at me because I wasn't supposed to do that so around that time like I I was off the vet like I faded out of the valium I was off the valium and it was like three or something in the morning I was at my wit's end cuz it had been almost 24 hours that I was in incredible pain the valium wore off I was in pain again and it was just like this this never-ending nightmare of pain no one believed me I was in the worst pain I've ever felt in my life and no one believed me which like my my family were like berating the doc my mom you guys have seen my mom my mom was so mad like she because she was a nurse like she's a nurse and she knows this so she's listed like constantly he's it's like this is wrong is wrong is wrong is wrong something's wrong please please please so it was like 4:00 in the morning and this nurse came in and I I called the nurse again because the value more often I was like please I'm in so much pain like I was crying tears I was begging I had nothing left I I just wanted something some reprieve someone to believe me and I was I was crying and I remember I looked over to her and I I said like I said to her I don't want to die like I think I'm gonna die I think I'm dying like this feels like I'm dying and like I remember like I was crying and even even this nurse like this a nurse was broken up about this like this nurse was literally crying and it's just because the doctors didn't want to give me anything else and it wasn't until around morning when the shifts changed and a new doctor came in that the pharmacy realized that there was a mistake the pharmacy said like a doctor actually checked the prescription itself with the pharmacy in the pharmacy was like oh we dropped the anesthesia and the painkiller because I think it was when they were gonna get a new bag like they were gonna get a new bag of medicine and it was supposed to be changed out and then they were really like oh oh oh and so after that it was an immediate shift in tone like a work ethic everything changed after that just to put it in perspective of how drastically it changed they they skipped out they completely forgot about the epidural and they just went straight to giving me dilaudid now dilaudid is also known as hydromorphone it is it is a substance a derivative of morphine that is 10 times stronger than morphine and they gave me dilaudid every hour on the hour to manage my pain that is how much painkiller I needed and that's how much painkiller I would have gone without and it was it was uh it was better after that it was it was better after that yeah it was it was much better after that being on dilaudid was very very very much better and so it was from then on it was like this weird huge state of being like I was just through hell for 24 hours I was through hell and I was in this weird moment where I realized that was rock bottom yeah that was rock bottom for me and so when when I had that realization that that was rock bottom it was kind of freeing I realized like I had been through pain unbelievable unbelievable pain that I'd never experienced before in my entire existence and yet I was still there and I was fine and I was going to be fine like I was I was through it and I was gonna be fine and and like I know that a lot of people are you sure - sued or even my mom my friends my family they were like you should assume like I could've and I had every legitimate reason to do that but even then I was just like I don't want to you know what I'm you know what I mean like I don't want that to be the defining thing about my life I don't want to be I don't want that to be my take away from it I didn't want anger and revenge to be my takeaway from that pained experience like it's not something that I wanted to blame anyone about I didn't want to blame myself I didn't want to blame any of the doctors like I didn't want a place fault on it that wasn't my priority my priority was after that I had this I had this like clear clear intention that I needed to do something with my life I needed to make myself better I needed to take control in some way shape or form because I knew that life was always gonna throw me curveballs and always gonna knock me down and always gonna put me through pain and I probably was gonna be in more pain at some point in my life that was even worse and like there have been many people that have been through worse pain than that and I have to keep that in perspective to the goals that I have to try to improve myself cuz I only have control over my own life and even that is up to debate like it's it's it's something where I saw potential roads of where I could have been I I saw different paths that my life could have taken and I saw different ways that I could have lived my life and I chose the one that allowed me to feel proud of who I was as a person that that led me to the road where I could believe that I had some semblance of control of my own destiny like forgetting the things that aren't in my control not worrying about the things that happened in the past that knocked me down and moving forward and always keeping my eyes on the horizon to know that I can improve myself until eventually I died it was very freeing because I've been through pain before I have I've been through a lot of pain before I like as a kid you guys probably know I had a jumping off the top of the stairs contest with my brother and I cracked my head open my thick thick skull I cracked my head open and it split and bled so much that it feels like a whole bath foul with blood my dad was one of those all of those situations about remember that being overly painful I just got stitches and I remember being in the doctor's office and my dad told me about like I put the the like they had this little like gown thing but it had like a front bib so I turned it around and I wore it as a cape and I was just like ah superhero like it was I was eight years old at the time but I was on the doctors table I was like super your dad and like he really remembered that very fondly about me and it was like man he's pretty tough and I was like yeah and pretty tough and so um you know like I I don't take away anything negative about that experience or I don't even remember me as a kid taking anything negative from that experience and like when I when I when I broke my arm later on I was about maybe 13 or 12 it maybe I was a younger like 12 or 11 let's say 11 I broke my arm I was with my brother and we were playing a how far out the monkey bars can you jump contest and I was gonna win but I went out too far and I fell and so I broke my arm and I broke both bones in this arm and it was like a stair-step like my arm went here and then my hand was up here so it was this is weird like thing so I remember getting up from the ground and I don't remember being in a lot of pain I remember it hurt obviously I was like something's wrong something's wrong with my arm and so I like I don't even know why I did it but my first instinct was just to like that's not right I know what it's supposed to look like so I'm gonna fix it so I grabbed the broken bone and I can die set it back into place and then it started hurting that's when it started hurting so I was like oh so like that's when it was like that sickening pain where you feel like you're gonna vomit like it was like that was that was um the earliest moment in my life when I was like that her real bad apparently I did a good job because after that like my dad took me to the hospital and the doctor said hey you know yo you did a pretty good job you almost got it perfect you almost got it right it's just a little off here all fixed up for you and then he immediately broke my arm again to reset it back into place and perfect and that's why I'm a perfection but I don't remember any negative takeaways about that remember I remember afterwards I was we went back home it was when we were living in a very small place a downsize from our childhood home because my mom and dad got divorced and we had to move obviously we couldn't like finance the house anymore and so we moved into this small town home it wasn't bad in any in any way shape or form but I remember going there it was one of the first times where there was like within the first month or two and I was in my bed and like I know the doctor wrote us a prescription but most pharmacies were closed like there wasn't really a 24-hour pharmacy in the area and like I told my dad that I was like I'm fine you don't have to go I can wait until morning like I can sleep for this you don't have to get painkillers my dad was like are you sure and like he said I went to bed I was like after I closed the door and I went to bed and I'm pretty sure I was probably crying in my bed because like it hurt obviously and I was crying in my bed and then my dad just like opened up the door and I was like this must have been like 10 seconds from when he closed it I closed the door on him because he was like are you sure you don't want me to get painkillers and I'm like it's like but then my dad just went out and got like he drove like 40 some minutes away to a pharmacy and I just remember the the two hours until he got back I was like this is never gonna end a gurney unbelievable agony like oh it's the worst thing and they came back and like I I think they gave me like I don't know like something like vicodin or something like that and it was just like as a kid I've never had anything like that before so it was my first experience with painkillers I don't like okay it's very very sleepy and I just went to sleep like I I don't remember any negative takeaways from it I don't remember any negative takeaways at all from it I remember being frustrated because it was really hard to like sharpen my pencil with my arm like that cuz I can't turn the thing I couldn't like get my books like out of the locker but that kind of worked out well because the some of my best friends in high school and school in general they became my friends because they saw that I was having trouble with my broken arm and they were like let me help you with that and it was like oh that's nice and then like I became friends with a lot of people I think drew Thiel was the first person that like really came up to me from that and then I got into band because of that and it was like no that that wasn't that wasn't really so bad I mean even if it didn't lead to me gaining friends like that like I don't think it would have been bad at all I only got to this point because of the trials and tribulations that I've been through and even through my college years like up until the point where I had that surgery that I told you about the tumor removal surgery that was in 2011 I believe and before that like I was still not sure who I was even after that I wasn't sure who I was like I didn't really solidify myself as a person until maybe a couple years ago like maybe a few years ago like it was it was hard very hard and honestly pain was a big motivator for it pain was a big like resolution for it pain was a good way of encapsulating it but only because of my attitude that I took away from the pain there's and and and this isn't doesn't apply to everybody of course there's there's certain pains that you know you can't just like I'm gonna have a positive attitude about it but it's not even like having a positive attitude about it like when it comes to pain I did I wasn't happy that I had pain like when I when I burnt my hands this is another point when I had a lot of pain I was cooking chicken wings and I was heating up the pot with the oil in it and I had my thermometer in there and the thermometer broke which was stupid because the thermometer was supposed to go up to like 800 degrees so mercury got in the in the pot so I'm like I can't cook in this like Mercury's in there that'll kill me so I stupidly put it in the sink and I'm like I need to I was gonna dump it and I'm like oh I can't dump this down the drains that'll be horrible it's so hot so I'll like I'll cool it down first so I stupidly elbow up the faucet dump water straight into the 600 degree oil it instantly flashes the oil bubbles over spills all over my hands second and third-degree burns all over my hands you can't see the scars because I took real good care of it but if I if it focuses right come on focus right there you'll see just a little scarring there and stuff like that but I had second and third degree burns on my hands so yeah lesson to the wise don't put water on grease don't put water in hot oil but I was stupid it wasn't thinking just just doing and so I remember I remember I ran I I must have dropped it fell and screamed cuz my brother was coming up running the stairs and he's like what happened and I remember like I was sprinting to the bathroom with my hands like in front of my face I was like duh and then he was up the stairs like what happened and I remember running past him like Doppler effect and everything just like just like I was in the bathroom and I dunked my hands underwater and it was so funny at first cuz I was just like the adrenaline was like oh and I was like oh I'm fine like and then like I had my hands under the water oh man Thomas I'm so stupid like I put water in oil and then the pain started coming and it was like ooh and then it was it was weird like like pulsating pain it would come in like five second bursts and my hands would cramp up for five seconds and then release for five seconds it was very rhythmic and very weird like and that's when the pain would happen like the it hurt like overall but then it would be like and it would be like that cycle and so my brother drove me to the hospital and I was up at the emergency room waiting camera only my hands and then they're like please fill out this form and I'm like right this was like please just go over sit over there burn the hands on like okay I want to walk around because I hurt my hands just like I was in so much agony like there were huge boils on my hand like my hand was like out to here with just this big boil innocently and then finally some nurse like behind the in the triage unit you know the triage is like how they prioritize people and the nurses like get the back and so like I I go back to the you know the emergency room little rooms there and they put me on a table and then then they make the stupid mistake of they put a blood pressure cuff on my arm and that's bad when you have pain in your hand because the blood pressure cuff it squeezes it cuts off circulation and forces blood down into the hand so is it like look it hurts girls real bad this hurts this hurts my hands they answered Herbert oh my heart's real bad and so they they basically it wasn't until an actual doctor came in that it are just like just like saw this on my arm saw me in pain saw the boys Emily I remember the panic on her face I distinctly remember the panic because she's like you know she pulls a curtain back you know the emergency room was like Ali my arm or like Ali oh my stomach or you know occasionally if someone actually has a problem they're rushed in on a gurney blood everywhere and they're sprinting in so usually when they pull back the curtain it's not like a huh situation so she pulls back the curtains is like oh cuz I had to be ambulance over to another hospital because the emergency room I went to didn't have a burn ward so I went to the the Cincinnati Children's Hospital for the that burn and it was it was just a fascinating experience where I had never been in an ambulance before I now had morphine so I was fine and so I was like that's all it's all good like you know I distinctly remember like even that pain like that pain was pretty up there like if anyone asked me on a one to ten scale that was a ten pain like that was if anyone asked me at the time that was a ten pain I didn't know that I was gonna have more pain down my life but I was like that was a ten pain but every pain up until that point I would gladly say I would do that again like I don't I don't care like I would do that again not voluntarily but if I had to like I know I could go through that again and I'd be fine like even there cuz I remember what happened was my mom finally got off work and she came over to the hospital at the the other hospital cuz I believe she was working as a nurse at the time so she was nearby in the Cincinnati Children's Hospital just in a different department and so she came over and she was like brought me McDonald's and I remember like I couldn't exactly hold it well but I could hold it with like my rested on my thumbs and hold them with my pinkies because I had bandages up all I'm down my arm now I remember I was just watching TV and just munching on a burger know what I ain't so bad I mean really like that that was because it's not so bad beep-boop nurse more morphine please it's just like but what sucked after that what sucked after that was I would I they sent me home obviously I had to go home it's not like I needed to rest in the hospital they kept me two days there just in case they sent me home they send me home with a big old batch of like a big tub of bacitracin which is basically neosporin and every day I had to change out my bandages twice a day and they said it was very important that I changed my bandages twice a day for the healing process or else like it would be heavily scarred disfigured and stuff like that and I was like that I don't want disfigured hands so I'm gonna do this every day so I did and that hurt like a because when when you're when you're healing from a burn wound like it's it's very important to keep it like clean moist and well like well bandaged so you know you don't want air getting in there you don't want anything like that so I would I would have to rip the bandages off because the bandages would cling to the newly-formed skin so every single day twice a day I would have to rip the skin off of my entire palm on both hands like this entire section down to here there were some burns up here I would rip the bandage off and hope that the skin wouldn't rip with it and it was like a 50/50 shot of whether it was or was not going to happen so I'd rip it off hurt like a I had painkillers obviously but you know it still hurt I remember like 30 minutes before I had to do it I would pop a painkiller Billy and I would have to mentally psych myself up to get ready to do this and I was just like and then I would put the bacitracin on I would like make sure it's really well rubbed in there I would put one layer of the the topical bandage and then I would put the gauze over that and I had these big mummy hands I have a picture somewhere of it but I don't remember where it is one of my friends probably has it I don't know it just never had any impact on me as a person and me as like a human being it was it was another experience was like that sucked but I could do it again like I could easily do it again and it wasn't until you know I had my tumor removed and I had pain beyond the threshold that I knew I could tolerate it was pain that forced me into a mindset of desperation of just sheer panic of not knowing if I was going to even survive it like pain beyond pain for longer than I ever could have imagined myself tolerating that I had this like realization that you know I am very temporary I am unbelievably temporary all of us are exceptionally temporary we have very little control of the forces around us we have less control than we think we do and I could have used that mindset to like really like go into a pit of despair and realize futility and like I could easily see myself taking away futility from that and going through this this this experience and being like what's the point like life is pain and stuff like that but I didn't like because I didn't like it completely disagreed with like what I wanted out of out of life like the the temporary nature of life really really really was kind of freeing it was it was it wasn't a bad thought it was a negative at all it was a good thought it was a good thought because if everything was temporary then I only have a limited amount of time to make a difference in the world I only have a limited amount of time to make a difference in myself I only have so much time to be the person that I want to be I only have so much time to do the things that I want to do I only have so much time to exist and like the only thing that will be there when I'm gone is what I've left behind and I want to leave behind the best things that I possibly can I want to leave behind a trail of people that are inspired by what I did I want to leave behind the works that I've made I want to leave behind the inspiration for other people to strive harder than they've ever striven before and to to go farther than they ever thought they could because I didn't think I could go very far you know I thought I'd do well I thought I'd be like okay but it wasn't until that moment the moment then I saw that things were in my control not everything not everything not everything can be in your control very little things can but there were some things that I could control there were things that I could learn there were things that I could practice there were things that I could do things that were within my realm of possibility my potential the potential that you know others saw in me you know I never recognized and it was in that moment that I saw the potential that I had in myself you know I recognized that you know people had said that I had a good voice for a while and I was like maybe I can do something with that you know my brother was an artist sounds like maybe there's some art potential in me you know my my my inspirations I draw from YouTube a lot I see that I'm like maybe I can do that maybe I can do that it's just like those simple ideas that simple change of mindset even then I didn't realize what it was and I didn't realize where it was going to lead me all I realized was that like maybe I can do something maybe I can I don't know maybe I could just show myself that I have some potential and then I can act upon it and then I can change my life and I can improve where I am that's the entire song of my life is just I'm going to try and I'm going to try and I'm gonna fail I'm gonna fail a lot I'm gonna fail a lot but that's never gonna stop me trying no one's ever gonna put me down because no one's ever been through what I've been through no one knows the pain that I've been through and no one knows how far I'm willing to go to do what I want to do pain doesn't define you it's how you respond to the pain that defines you it's how you it's what you take away from that that defines you it's it's how you move forward in your life from pain that defines you whether that's emotional or physical I I don't believe in the benefits of revenge I don't believe that it leads to anything I I'm a big forgiveness and I which is odd because I'm a very spiteful person but not not excessively like just about as much as anybody else but it's just like pain it's so easy to lay blame for pain it's so easy to point fingers when pain happens it's so easy to bone triggers especially at yourself like you could point fingers at yourself for pain and and that's a self-destructive cycle all of it is like it's it's a self-destructive cycle it will never get better if you're always seeking a release for anger you know if anger is your only release for pain then anger is all that you'll have it's like a muscle that you train you you'll only ever have more of what you put out from it like you have more control over it than you think there are some things that you don't have control over obviously like I'm not saying depression is just something that you can control it would never say that but there are like takeaways you can bring out of it you don't even have to be positive about it because I sure as wasn't positive when I was coming out of those surgery I was angry I was pissed off but I wasn't pissed off at any one person I wasn't pissed off at life I wasn't pissed off at like things I was pissed off that I didn't take chances I was pissed off that I'd gotten to this point without having done anything I was pissed off because this could have been the end of me that could have been the end of me you know I'm not saying don't come out of pain all smiling like yes and more please like don't do that that's stupid come out of it with a rationalization that you don't need to point fingers all you need to do is take the steps forward that push you to what you want never let anything be taken for granted don't let any moment get away from you don't let a single second get away from you because I was nothing in my eyes I was nothing I was I was just an average like everybody like I had potential didn't act upon it I was I was the sob story of wasted potential you know and and a lot of people you know can relate to that in some way but I was ok with that and a lot of people can be ok with that and that's fine but if you just take a moment to try and you take a moment to go just a little bit farther like absolutely anything's possible yeah no one is ever nothing I thought I was nothing nothingwhat is the worst pain that you've ever been in in your life like honestly ask yourself what is the worst pain that you've ever been in your life everyone's been through pain like of some degree some level like no one has had the worst pain because there's always someone that like the people in the medieval ages when they've been in the iron maiden for thirty days or the cow thing where they get boiled alive the worst physical pain I've ever been in in my life was after my surgery and then to manage my pain they had me in an epidural what it epidural is it's a tap directly into your spinal column at a certain vertebra that injects a painkiller and anesthesia directly into your spinal column so it makes everything from that point down numb so you can't feel a lot of it so I had an epidural to manage that pain but it was like it wasn't enough number one right off the bat and then number two it was making my legs numb so I couldn't walk and that was a big problem so I couldn't move at all I was like this this is weird but okay I'll deal with it I was gonna be bedridden for like two weeks anyway in the hospital basically the nurse and the doctors are like we'll change this up like we want you to like be able to walk and stuff so that they changed my pain medication in the epidural to something different cuz it's just like a big bag in a machine that slowly injects it overtime so they were gonna change it so it increased the painkiller and decrease the anesthesia but there was a mistake in the in the pharmacy and they decreased the anesthesia and decreased the painkillers so when they brought me the new bag I was on no numbing agent and no painkiller it was like basically a saline drip into my spine and so I started telling the doctors that I was in a lot of pain like a lot of pain and nurses and doctors would keep coming in and they would look at the Machine and they'd be like no it's fine it's fine look it's fine you've got no problems with it it's totally fine it's giving you medicine it's giving you medicine at the rate that we wanted to give you and there's no issues with it so what it came down to was I started more and more just being like Doc's nurse I am in incredible unbelievable pain I have just a huge gash in my abdomen that's not being medicated at all it's like I got stabbed with a six-inch so it really hurts and no one would believe me no one not like the nurses that I was with they kind of believed me they kept going to the doctors but the doctors did not believe me and it got to the worst point where a doctor actually came in the room he he was obviously pissed off and just like to us guys just trying to get more pain medication and he comes in and I'm lying in the bed you know I'm just in agony and he comes up to me and he just grabs like full-on grabs with his hand into my incision my incision is from here to here like that line that's the incision and he just grabs around it and he starts feeling for bleeding because he's like maybe there's bleeding and he's feeling around and he just grabs onto and I just start screaming like just screaming in agony because it is the most painful thing and he gives me the most like like derogatory look I've ever seen and I'm just like I'm weeping tears it is just the most agonizing thing he didn't do it out of maliciousness now he did it because he was checking for bleeding obviously so he he was grabbing to feel as if the incision was out like he was he was palpating just to see if there was something wrong with it and he might have been doing it aggressively but then again anything that he would have done would have been incredibly painful and so afterwards he left the room he ordered that I needed to have valium cuz he didn't want to give me more painkillers but he wanted to give me valium to like relax me and put me to sleep and just like knock me out so for those of you who know when I was doing drunk minecraft sometimes when I would get drunk and my face would flush like with with blood I I would get this splotchy mark on my neck like right here and that's because that's a scar when they gave me valium they they wanted me to knock me out but I also had a central line in my neck an arterial line in my neck and what that is is it's a line that ties in directly to your artery so it can measure your heart rate blood pressure and probably other things that I don't know about but when I was on valium and I don't remember doing this at all I was so out of it that I dug into my neck I literally clawed and pulled and scratched and scraped my neck until I pulled the central line out of mine and so I started bleeding incredibly and then they rushed in they fixed me I don't remember any of this by the way I don't remember a thing of this I don't remember doing it I don't remember feeling it I don't remember hurting like it all I remember is that like when I when I finally came to I had a huge like splotchy mark on my neck and they were mad at me because I wasn't supposed to do that so around that time like I I was off the vet like I faded out of the valium I was off the valium and it was like three or something in the morning I was at my wit's end cuz it had been almost 24 hours that I was in incredible pain the valium wore off I was in pain again and it was just like this this never-ending nightmare of pain no one believed me I was in the worst pain I've ever felt in my life and no one believed me which like my my family were like berating the doc my mom you guys have seen my mom my mom was so mad like she because she was a nurse like she's a nurse and she knows this so she's listed like constantly he's it's like this is wrong is wrong is wrong is wrong something's wrong please please please so it was like 4:00 in the morning and this nurse came in and I I called the nurse again because the value more often I was like please I'm in so much pain like I was crying tears I was begging I had nothing left I I just wanted something some reprieve someone to believe me and I was I was crying and I remember I looked over to her and I I said like I said to her I don't want to die like I think I'm gonna die I think I'm dying like this feels like I'm dying and like I remember like I was crying and even even this nurse like this a nurse was broken up about this like this nurse was literally crying and it's just because the doctors didn't want to give me anything else and it wasn't until around morning when the shifts changed and a new doctor came in that the pharmacy realized that there was a mistake the pharmacy said like a doctor actually checked the prescription itself with the pharmacy in the pharmacy was like oh we dropped the anesthesia and the painkiller because I think it was when they were gonna get a new bag like they were gonna get a new bag of medicine and it was supposed to be changed out and then they were really like oh oh oh and so after that it was an immediate shift in tone like a work ethic everything changed after that just to put it in perspective of how drastically it changed they they skipped out they completely forgot about the epidural and they just went straight to giving me dilaudid now dilaudid is also known as hydromorphone it is it is a substance a derivative of morphine that is 10 times stronger than morphine and they gave me dilaudid every hour on the hour to manage my pain that is how much painkiller I needed and that's how much painkiller I would have gone without and it was it was uh it was better after that it was it was better after that yeah it was it was much better after that being on dilaudid was very very very much better and so it was from then on it was like this weird huge state of being like I was just through hell for 24 hours I was through hell and I was in this weird moment where I realized that was rock bottom yeah that was rock bottom for me and so when when I had that realization that that was rock bottom it was kind of freeing I realized like I had been through pain unbelievable unbelievable pain that I'd never experienced before in my entire existence and yet I was still there and I was fine and I was going to be fine like I was I was through it and I was gonna be fine and and like I know that a lot of people are you sure - sued or even my mom my friends my family they were like you should assume like I could've and I had every legitimate reason to do that but even then I was just like I don't want to you know what I'm you know what I mean like I don't want that to be the defining thing about my life I don't want to be I don't want that to be my take away from it I didn't want anger and revenge to be my takeaway from that pained experience like it's not something that I wanted to blame anyone about I didn't want to blame myself I didn't want to blame any of the doctors like I didn't want a place fault on it that wasn't my priority my priority was after that I had this I had this like clear clear intention that I needed to do something with my life I needed to make myself better I needed to take control in some way shape or form because I knew that life was always gonna throw me curveballs and always gonna knock me down and always gonna put me through pain and I probably was gonna be in more pain at some point in my life that was even worse and like there have been many people that have been through worse pain than that and I have to keep that in perspective to the goals that I have to try to improve myself cuz I only have control over my own life and even that is up to debate like it's it's it's something where I saw potential roads of where I could have been I I saw different paths that my life could have taken and I saw different ways that I could have lived my life and I chose the one that allowed me to feel proud of who I was as a person that that led me to the road where I could believe that I had some semblance of control of my own destiny like forgetting the things that aren't in my control not worrying about the things that happened in the past that knocked me down and moving forward and always keeping my eyes on the horizon to know that I can improve myself until eventually I died it was very freeing because I've been through pain before I have I've been through a lot of pain before I like as a kid you guys probably know I had a jumping off the top of the stairs contest with my brother and I cracked my head open my thick thick skull I cracked my head open and it split and bled so much that it feels like a whole bath foul with blood my dad was one of those all of those situations about remember that being overly painful I just got stitches and I remember being in the doctor's office and my dad told me about like I put the the like they had this little like gown thing but it had like a front bib so I turned it around and I wore it as a cape and I was just like ah superhero like it was I was eight years old at the time but I was on the doctors table I was like super your dad and like he really remembered that very fondly about me and it was like man he's pretty tough and I was like yeah and pretty tough and so um you know like I I don't take away anything negative about that experience or I don't even remember me as a kid taking anything negative from that experience and like when I when I when I broke my arm later on I was about maybe 13 or 12 it maybe I was a younger like 12 or 11 let's say 11 I broke my arm I was with my brother and we were playing a how far out the monkey bars can you jump contest and I was gonna win but I went out too far and I fell and so I broke my arm and I broke both bones in this arm and it was like a stair-step like my arm went here and then my hand was up here so it was this is weird like thing so I remember getting up from the ground and I don't remember being in a lot of pain I remember it hurt obviously I was like something's wrong something's wrong with my arm and so I like I don't even know why I did it but my first instinct was just to like that's not right I know what it's supposed to look like so I'm gonna fix it so I grabbed the broken bone and I can die set it back into place and then it started hurting that's when it started hurting so I was like oh so like that's when it was like that sickening pain where you feel like you're gonna vomit like it was like that was that was um the earliest moment in my life when I was like that her real bad apparently I did a good job because after that like my dad took me to the hospital and the doctor said hey you know yo you did a pretty good job you almost got it perfect you almost got it right it's just a little off here all fixed up for you and then he immediately broke my arm again to reset it back into place and perfect and that's why I'm a perfection but I don't remember any negative takeaways about that remember I remember afterwards I was we went back home it was when we were living in a very small place a downsize from our childhood home because my mom and dad got divorced and we had to move obviously we couldn't like finance the house anymore and so we moved into this small town home it wasn't bad in any in any way shape or form but I remember going there it was one of the first times where there was like within the first month or two and I was in my bed and like I know the doctor wrote us a prescription but most pharmacies were closed like there wasn't really a 24-hour pharmacy in the area and like I told my dad that I was like I'm fine you don't have to go I can wait until morning like I can sleep for this you don't have to get painkillers my dad was like are you sure and like he said I went to bed I was like after I closed the door and I went to bed and I'm pretty sure I was probably crying in my bed because like it hurt obviously and I was crying in my bed and then my dad just like opened up the door and I was like this must have been like 10 seconds from when he closed it I closed the door on him because he was like are you sure you don't want me to get painkillers and I'm like it's like but then my dad just went out and got like he drove like 40 some minutes away to a pharmacy and I just remember the the two hours until he got back I was like this is never gonna end a gurney unbelievable agony like oh it's the worst thing and they came back and like I I think they gave me like I don't know like something like vicodin or something like that and it was just like as a kid I've never had anything like that before so it was my first experience with painkillers I don't like okay it's very very sleepy and I just went to sleep like I I don't remember any negative takeaways from it I don't remember any negative takeaways at all from it I remember being frustrated because it was really hard to like sharpen my pencil with my arm like that cuz I can't turn the thing I couldn't like get my books like out of the locker but that kind of worked out well because the some of my best friends in high school and school in general they became my friends because they saw that I was having trouble with my broken arm and they were like let me help you with that and it was like oh that's nice and then like I became friends with a lot of people I think drew Thiel was the first person that like really came up to me from that and then I got into band because of that and it was like no that that wasn't that wasn't really so bad I mean even if it didn't lead to me gaining friends like that like I don't think it would have been bad at all I only got to this point because of the trials and tribulations that I've been through and even through my college years like up until the point where I had that surgery that I told you about the tumor removal surgery that was in 2011 I believe and before that like I was still not sure who I was even after that I wasn't sure who I was like I didn't really solidify myself as a person until maybe a couple years ago like maybe a few years ago like it was it was hard very hard and honestly pain was a big motivator for it pain was a big like resolution for it pain was a good way of encapsulating it but only because of my attitude that I took away from the pain there's and and and this isn't doesn't apply to everybody of course there's there's certain pains that you know you can't just like I'm gonna have a positive attitude about it but it's not even like having a positive attitude about it like when it comes to pain I did I wasn't happy that I had pain like when I when I burnt my hands this is another point when I had a lot of pain I was cooking chicken wings and I was heating up the pot with the oil in it and I had my thermometer in there and the thermometer broke which was stupid because the thermometer was supposed to go up to like 800 degrees so mercury got in the in the pot so I'm like I can't cook in this like Mercury's in there that'll kill me so I stupidly put it in the sink and I'm like I need to I was gonna dump it and I'm like oh I can't dump this down the drains that'll be horrible it's so hot so I'll like I'll cool it down first so I stupidly elbow up the faucet dump water straight into the 600 degree oil it instantly flashes the oil bubbles over spills all over my hands second and third-degree burns all over my hands you can't see the scars because I took real good care of it but if I if it focuses right come on focus right there you'll see just a little scarring there and stuff like that but I had second and third degree burns on my hands so yeah lesson to the wise don't put water on grease don't put water in hot oil but I was stupid it wasn't thinking just just doing and so I remember I remember I ran I I must have dropped it fell and screamed cuz my brother was coming up running the stairs and he's like what happened and I remember like I was sprinting to the bathroom with my hands like in front of my face I was like duh and then he was up the stairs like what happened and I remember running past him like Doppler effect and everything just like just like I was in the bathroom and I dunked my hands underwater and it was so funny at first cuz I was just like the adrenaline was like oh and I was like oh I'm fine like and then like I had my hands under the water oh man Thomas I'm so stupid like I put water in oil and then the pain started coming and it was like ooh and then it was it was weird like like pulsating pain it would come in like five second bursts and my hands would cramp up for five seconds and then release for five seconds it was very rhythmic and very weird like and that's when the pain would happen like the it hurt like overall but then it would be like and it would be like that cycle and so my brother drove me to the hospital and I was up at the emergency room waiting camera only my hands and then they're like please fill out this form and I'm like right this was like please just go over sit over there burn the hands on like okay I want to walk around because I hurt my hands just like I was in so much agony like there were huge boils on my hand like my hand was like out to here with just this big boil innocently and then finally some nurse like behind the in the triage unit you know the triage is like how they prioritize people and the nurses like get the back and so like I I go back to the you know the emergency room little rooms there and they put me on a table and then then they make the stupid mistake of they put a blood pressure cuff on my arm and that's bad when you have pain in your hand because the blood pressure cuff it squeezes it cuts off circulation and forces blood down into the hand so is it like look it hurts girls real bad this hurts this hurts my hands they answered Herbert oh my heart's real bad and so they they basically it wasn't until an actual doctor came in that it are just like just like saw this on my arm saw me in pain saw the boys Emily I remember the panic on her face I distinctly remember the panic because she's like you know she pulls a curtain back you know the emergency room was like Ali my arm or like Ali oh my stomach or you know occasionally if someone actually has a problem they're rushed in on a gurney blood everywhere and they're sprinting in so usually when they pull back the curtain it's not like a huh situation so she pulls back the curtains is like oh cuz I had to be ambulance over to another hospital because the emergency room I went to didn't have a burn ward so I went to the the Cincinnati Children's Hospital for the that burn and it was it was just a fascinating experience where I had never been in an ambulance before I now had morphine so I was fine and so I was like that's all it's all good like you know I distinctly remember like even that pain like that pain was pretty up there like if anyone asked me on a one to ten scale that was a ten pain like that was if anyone asked me at the time that was a ten pain I didn't know that I was gonna have more pain down my life but I was like that was a ten pain but every pain up until that point I would gladly say I would do that again like I don't I don't care like I would do that again not voluntarily but if I had to like I know I could go through that again and I'd be fine like even there cuz I remember what happened was my mom finally got off work and she came over to the hospital at the the other hospital cuz I believe she was working as a nurse at the time so she was nearby in the Cincinnati Children's Hospital just in a different department and so she came over and she was like brought me McDonald's and I remember like I couldn't exactly hold it well but I could hold it with like my rested on my thumbs and hold them with my pinkies because I had bandages up all I'm down my arm now I remember I was just watching TV and just munching on a burger know what I ain't so bad I mean really like that that was because it's not so bad beep-boop nurse more morphine please it's just like but what sucked after that what sucked after that was I would I they sent me home obviously I had to go home it's not like I needed to rest in the hospital they kept me two days there just in case they sent me home they send me home with a big old batch of like a big tub of bacitracin which is basically neosporin and every day I had to change out my bandages twice a day and they said it was very important that I changed my bandages twice a day for the healing process or else like it would be heavily scarred disfigured and stuff like that and I was like that I don't want disfigured hands so I'm gonna do this every day so I did and that hurt like a because when when you're when you're healing from a burn wound like it's it's very important to keep it like clean moist and well like well bandaged so you know you don't want air getting in there you don't want anything like that so I would I would have to rip the bandages off because the bandages would cling to the newly-formed skin so every single day twice a day I would have to rip the skin off of my entire palm on both hands like this entire section down to here there were some burns up here I would rip the bandage off and hope that the skin wouldn't rip with it and it was like a 50/50 shot of whether it was or was not going to happen so I'd rip it off hurt like a I had painkillers obviously but you know it still hurt I remember like 30 minutes before I had to do it I would pop a painkiller Billy and I would have to mentally psych myself up to get ready to do this and I was just like and then I would put the bacitracin on I would like make sure it's really well rubbed in there I would put one layer of the the topical bandage and then I would put the gauze over that and I had these big mummy hands I have a picture somewhere of it but I don't remember where it is one of my friends probably has it I don't know it just never had any impact on me as a person and me as like a human being it was it was another experience was like that sucked but I could do it again like I could easily do it again and it wasn't until you know I had my tumor removed and I had pain beyond the threshold that I knew I could tolerate it was pain that forced me into a mindset of desperation of just sheer panic of not knowing if I was going to even survive it like pain beyond pain for longer than I ever could have imagined myself tolerating that I had this like realization that you know I am very temporary I am unbelievably temporary all of us are exceptionally temporary we have very little control of the forces around us we have less control than we think we do and I could have used that mindset to like really like go into a pit of despair and realize futility and like I could easily see myself taking away futility from that and going through this this this experience and being like what's the point like life is pain and stuff like that but I didn't like because I didn't like it completely disagreed with like what I wanted out of out of life like the the temporary nature of life really really really was kind of freeing it was it was it wasn't a bad thought it was a negative at all it was a good thought it was a good thought because if everything was temporary then I only have a limited amount of time to make a difference in the world I only have a limited amount of time to make a difference in myself I only have so much time to be the person that I want to be I only have so much time to do the things that I want to do I only have so much time to exist and like the only thing that will be there when I'm gone is what I've left behind and I want to leave behind the best things that I possibly can I want to leave behind a trail of people that are inspired by what I did I want to leave behind the works that I've made I want to leave behind the inspiration for other people to strive harder than they've ever striven before and to to go farther than they ever thought they could because I didn't think I could go very far you know I thought I'd do well I thought I'd be like okay but it wasn't until that moment the moment then I saw that things were in my control not everything not everything not everything can be in your control very little things can but there were some things that I could control there were things that I could learn there were things that I could practice there were things that I could do things that were within my realm of possibility my potential the potential that you know others saw in me you know I never recognized and it was in that moment that I saw the potential that I had in myself you know I recognized that you know people had said that I had a good voice for a while and I was like maybe I can do something with that you know my brother was an artist sounds like maybe there's some art potential in me you know my my my inspirations I draw from YouTube a lot I see that I'm like maybe I can do that maybe I can do that it's just like those simple ideas that simple change of mindset even then I didn't realize what it was and I didn't realize where it was going to lead me all I realized was that like maybe I can do something maybe I can I don't know maybe I could just show myself that I have some potential and then I can act upon it and then I can change my life and I can improve where I am that's the entire song of my life is just I'm going to try and I'm going to try and I'm gonna fail I'm gonna fail a lot I'm gonna fail a lot but that's never gonna stop me trying no one's ever gonna put me down because no one's ever been through what I've been through no one knows the pain that I've been through and no one knows how far I'm willing to go to do what I want to do pain doesn't define you it's how you respond to the pain that defines you it's how you it's what you take away from that that defines you it's it's how you move forward in your life from pain that defines you whether that's emotional or physical I I don't believe in the benefits of revenge I don't believe that it leads to anything I I'm a big forgiveness and I which is odd because I'm a very spiteful person but not not excessively like just about as much as anybody else but it's just like pain it's so easy to lay blame for pain it's so easy to point fingers when pain happens it's so easy to bone triggers especially at yourself like you could point fingers at yourself for pain and and that's a self-destructive cycle all of it is like it's it's a self-destructive cycle it will never get better if you're always seeking a release for anger you know if anger is your only release for pain then anger is all that you'll have it's like a muscle that you train you you'll only ever have more of what you put out from it like you have more control over it than you think there are some things that you don't have control over obviously like I'm not saying depression is just something that you can control it would never say that but there are like takeaways you can bring out of it you don't even have to be positive about it because I sure as wasn't positive when I was coming out of those surgery I was angry I was pissed off but I wasn't pissed off at any one person I wasn't pissed off at life I wasn't pissed off at like things I was pissed off that I didn't take chances I was pissed off that I'd gotten to this point without having done anything I was pissed off because this could have been the end of me that could have been the end of me you know I'm not saying don't come out of pain all smiling like yes and more please like don't do that that's stupid come out of it with a rationalization that you don't need to point fingers all you need to do is take the steps forward that push you to what you want never let anything be taken for granted don't let any moment get away from you don't let a single second get away from you because I was nothing in my eyes I was nothing I was I was just an average like everybody like I had potential didn't act upon it I was I was the sob story of wasted potential you know and and a lot of people you know can relate to that in some way but I was ok with that and a lot of people can be ok with that and that's fine but if you just take a moment to try and you take a moment to go just a little bit farther like absolutely anything's possible yeah no one is ever nothing I thought I was nothing nothing\n"