Think of this as a freewriting exercise. Earlier yesterday, I went to a flower shop and got myself a bouquet.
How do you grow a flower using only a used phone and a toothpick? I guess you can use the phone to google a method, but what is the toothpick for? Well, you can use that to clean your teeth. The result now, is that I have 8 opens taps to how I could grow a flower at home and clean teeth. Still, no tools to grow a flower. Maybe I will figure it out soon.
# Explain your most memorable moment from 2021
I am so happy with how that was phrased. I love explaining things, and I love how I stumble upon my own words while attempting to explain something I don't understand that much: My life. What was the assignment again? Oh yeah
> How do you grow a flower using only a used phone and a toothpick?
Maybe memorize the method, sell the phone, use the money to buy the necessary tools. But, what is the toothpick for? Also, wouldn't I need the phone for other stuff? Oh yeah, it is actually about my most memorable moment in 2021
Well, it happened exactly a year minus 10 days ago. The moment involved me waking up to a nick cramp, getting dumped by my girlfriend, and spending the night sleeping on a chair in the street.
### Let me explain
If I downgrade my phone, I could use the money difference to buy the tools necessary to plant a flower. Sadly, my phone is cheap. I will keep working on a plan.
Now let me explain my most memorable moment. It wasn't exactly a moment I cherished at the time, but I see the value in it now.
I have lived my entire life with a feeling that is kinda like fear of intimacy, but more like scared-shitless-outta-my-mind-terrified of intimacy. So in a moment of openness after waking up with a cramped neck my girlfriend at the time asked "How are you feeling today?"
I replied with this picture.
"Lol?" She replied. I didn't add anything.
It encapsulated everything I felt. In pain, unmotivated, depressed, but kinda giddy and hoping to make someone laugh. And off in the background is an old picture reminding me of the time I wanted to be a photographer before that dream fell apart.
Later on, we went on a date I had worked 3 weeks to pay for. I got dumped that day. The sad part is that she didn't even have the courtesy of doing it before we ordered dinner. No, she dumped me right after she ordered the most expensive item on the menu. And to make things worse, her "goodbye present" was a fucking lighter.
Anyway, I decided to walk around before going home. All I got from my date was a waste of money and, I will admit it, a very nice lighter. After a few hours, I realized I am far from home, didn't have money for a taxi ride back, and all the busses have stopped coming.
#### I was all alone
In a dark street, I only recognized one person who didn't have money to lend or could host me as they had a big family. All he offered me was a chair to sit on until the next day comes. Freezing in the cold really added to my sad feelings.
How do you get home when you don't have the money? Or most importantly, how do you grow a flower using only a used phone and a toothpick? The answer is maybe to give up every little thing you have, as worthless as it may be, for an overrated goal.
Next to me was a pile of destroyed furniture. I have always fantasized about being that guy who could make anything out of nothing. So I destroyed some pieces of wood and use the lighter I had received.
For the first time ever in humanity's history, a grown man made a fire to get warm.
My friend helped me set it up and then went home. And I slept, oddly very comfortably.
# My advice to anyone reading this is the same as the one thing I wish I would change.
Stop forcing things where they don't belong. Maybe you're not meant to force relationships into working while having fear of intimacy, maybe you're meant to be alone as you figure out yourself.
Maybe the answer is as obvious as making a fire to get warm on a cold night. And maybe you're meant to look clearly at the signs before paying for an expensive dinner before getting dumped.
There's something rather humbling about realizing you can't afford a ride home while you spend most of your life dreaming of improving the world. Dreaming of giving people, helping starving children, curing cancers, making blockbuster movies, and writing best-selling books when you don't have the tools for any of that.
# A Hive User to Whom I Want to Show Gratitude
It would be difficult to do this meaningfully while tagging the user as they're a person with a large upvote and didn't hesitate to use that whenever I would tag them. So, I am not going to do that and just hope our private messages were enough.
The person I picked for this is probably known for most reading this: It is Acidyo. More than a year ago, on exactly the 16th of September 2020, I was faced with a sudden realization that I may lack the means to survive, having no other tool I decided to write a [Post](https://peakd.com/lost/@amirtheawesome1/my-scary-life-after-losing-my-job) about it. It was surprising to have someone like him actually take an interest and attempt to help. I could honestly say, that he is someone I would credit for being a big part of saving my life at some point.
# My 2022 goals
My first goal is to finally start publishing books I have written. The logistics are really complicated to get that done here in Iraq, especially since they're written in English. But, I am slowly getting there.
My second goal is to make my [Comedy Community](https://peakd.com/c/hive-164166) become a permanent thing. I really want to add to his great platform by creating a place in it meant for laughter. A place that you would go to just have fun and take life less seriously.
Finally
an # Why 2021 sucked and 2022 is going to be better?
This takes me back to the question:
> How do you grow a flower using only a used phone and a toothpick?
The answer is you don't. When I think back on it, 2021 didn't suck, I did. I spent so much time attempting the impossible and getting frustrated and depressed when it doesn't work. The answer was simple, so obvious, and right in front of me the whole time that I can't believe I spent so much time not seeing it: I wasn't meant to grow a flower using a used phone and a toothpick.
But instead, maybe I could just take a silly selfie
A silly selfie isn't the greatest thing in the world.
But, it is a little selfie where I played around with the filters randomly. You could still see the clothes in the closet with a busted door as I could only buy it with the little money I had in a small room.
It is not much, but it is a moment in time when I did something so meaningless that made me feel so much better. A break in time from depression, seeing myself as fat and ugly, and just smiling as I look at a picture is not the best thing in the world. But just a picture, like many pictures I plan to take, just meant to make me smile and enjoy my time.
Thank you to @galenkp for creating this initiative, and to @beautifulwreck for her [post](https://peakd.com/hive-168869/@beautifulwreck/the-gift-of-gratitude) that showed me the way to it.
I wish you all have a great year ahead.
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All pictures above are mine or edited by me
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