The one thing that pains me to no end is when an element from my past, something that occurred still dominates every facet of your life, causing shame and misery as well as sucking all the esteem and ambition out of my life

If there is something you can do, do it! If you’ve got something to state, state it. Think with your head, speak from your heart. Nine times out of ten, even those who don’t agree with your position, methods, actions or words should at least respect your having the guts to try to make things better. And if they do not, well, to heck with them – it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

What does matter is applying yourself to the best of your abilities, and you can do so only by ridding yourself of stupid, worthless, esteem sucking, needless clots of crap and stopping them from further accumulating in life.