Learning Every Single Day

Hello, Reader,

• To be happy.
• To help others.
• To never stop learning.

So here I am. Working in an emergency room. About to start school again in a few weeks. Walking a path that will take years—maybe a decade, maybe more. Maybe medicine will keep me here, maybe I’ll end up somewhere I can’t see yet. Doesn’t matter. As long as I keep moving toward purpose, I know I’ll end up where I’m meant to be.

Because I’m finally living what I’ve always believed—helping people, in the most tangible way possible. And not once, not for a single moment, have I felt that old discontent creeping back in.

So, Reader, if you needed a sign—here it is.

Be extra. Chase that ridiculous, terrifying, exhilarating thing inside of you. The world will try to talk you out of it. Routine will try to bury it. But the truth?

Your entire life can change in a single moment.

One decision. One shift. One choice to stop thinking and start doing.

And the next day? You wake up and do it again.

My Ten Rules for Life:

• If you want something, ask for it.
• Life rewards courage.
• When communication is hardest, that’s when it’s most needed.
• Changing your mind when faced with new truth isn’t weakness.
• Holding onto outdated beliefs, despite the facts, isn’t virtue.
• It’s dangerously easy to forget that other people are real. If you want respect, start by giving it.
• E.E. Cummings was right—“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else—is to fight the hardest battle you will ever fight.”
• But remember: Not every battle is worth fighting. Choose wisely.
• Define your mission. Live by it.
• Whatever you do—do it with excellence.

And because I’m a poet, here’s something for you:

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Rinse

By Gregory Scott Gentry II

In this sacred space, we discovered our true selves,
A place where everything felt right, where harmony dwells.
Where emotions entwine with the melody’s grace,
And mistakes of the past are erased.

The bottle beckoned, “Drink me,” it said,
So I lifted it high and consumed life’s thread.
In that eternal moment’s serenade,
A sip of existence, forever to fade.

And then it was over, the magic undone,
Yet it meant everything—the moon and the sun.
We don’t run out of fear, nor hide out of hate,
We simply feel, because we cannot abate.

So raise this cup, remember me in this tone,
For this shall forever be my epitaph, my own.
To feel, to seek, and to discover anew,
As the music swells, let it guide me and you.

No higher place can we ever find,
Than within the notes, entwined.
I won’t mourn its passing, I refuse to let go,
I won’t ignore this song, for its power I know.

This moment is mine, and ours, and yours,
Let these words guide you to your inner shores.
Find yourself within these verses, embrace their art,
For I mean them today, and I meant them from the start.

So here’s to chaos, a farewell we bid,
As hope arrives, a new chapter to be lit.

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Let’s get back to the basics: be happy. Help others be happy.

Everything else? It’ll follow.

In Ink and Dust,
Greg