My biology teacher used to tell us "if your results don't look like what you expected, it's ok. The bacteria didn't read the lab manual."

And neither does this life.

There is no fixed set of instructions to tell you to "mix 10mL of a .1 molar solution of hard work and dedication with a gram of activated inspiration, heat at 98.6 degrees for the next hundred twenty weeks" to get you to success.

The world never read a lab manual.

So you've got to stay on your toes, poised, light and carefree like Peter Pan who never grows old because he doesn't let the missteps and the falters glue his feet to the ground. With eyes like a child, open wide to find the wonder that this world hides if only you can keep them open long enough to see it.

The average person spends five years of their lives blinking, and that's a lot of time to lose, but every time I blink I find memories of you dancing across my eyelids. So I keep them shut just a little while longer, because your smile lights up the sky in ways the sun will never know. So keep on smiling through the darkness to find the path to lead you home.

Don't let the prospects of gloom keep you from stepping outside to smell the flowers. The worst the rain can do is get you a little wet. So maybe you have to change your clothes. But that's okay because we live like sharks who can't stop swimming or else they'll drown. And what's life without a couple ups and downs?

So maybe you have to change your clothes, but for the rest of forever you'll have the memory of how the petals of that midsummer rose tickled your nose, and the feeling of the cold rain kissing your cheek, and the way the earth smells when the sky weeps.

Life doesn't have a lab manual, so you can never know what to expect, you can never say for certain what is coming next. But that's okay. Beauty gleams more brilliantly for those who have known pain. Flowers smell sweeter when you're standing in the rain.

Your life may not seem perfect.

But keep on living, keep on breathing, keep on hoping, on believing, finding fireflies to keep you company through the night. Striking flint that sparks a flame to ignite the fire in your heart. Keep on wanting, keep on dreaming, keep on loving, keep on seeing the world—with a child's eyes. Drink deep of the night so that you can welcome each sunrise with widespread arms. And know, that you don't need a lab manual. You're pressing on despite the odds, you might not see it now. But I promise you darling, you're doing fine without.