Adventures of Mason #9

The Fortune Cookie Knew

I cracked open a fortune cookie today.

It said: Discover the strength within yourself.

I've been going through a lot the last six months.

I won't get into all of it on this particular post. Some things aren't ready to be written about yet. Some things need more distance before I can see them clearly enough to turn them into words. Some things might never make it to the page, and that's okay too.

But this message came at the right time.

The Discovery Part

The fortune said "discover," which implies that the strength is already there, just hidden. Waiting to be found.

I've had to go deep within myself to find strength recently. And the fortune is right—it has been a process of discovery.

Not invention. Not creation. Discovery.

Like finding something in a drawer you forgot you owned. Or digging through old boxes in the basement and realizing you kept something that turns out to be exactly what you need now.

Strength was there. I just didn't know I'd need to use it. Or maybe I didn't know I had it in the first place.

Both feel true.

What "Going Deep" Actually Means

"Going deep within yourself" sounds poetic. Spiritual, even.

The reality is messier.

It's 3 a.m. and you can't sleep because your brain won't stop running scenarios. It's making decisions you don't want to make because not making them would be worse. It's showing up for your kids when you're not sure you have anything left to show up with. It's doing the next thing, and then the next thing, and then the next thing, because stopping isn't an option.

It's discovering that you're more resilient than you thought, which is both comforting and deeply unfair.

Because you shouldn't have had to find out.

The Gratitude Problem

I'm grateful.

That feels important to say, even though it's complicated.

I'm grateful for the people who showed up. For the realizations that emerged from necessity. For the version of myself that I found when everything else got stripped away.

But I'm also tired.

And I'm hoping—really hoping—that some of the more gruesome trials I've been through recently will stay behind me.

I'm hoping that "discover the strength within yourself" doesn't become a recurring theme. That I don't need to keep excavating new reserves of resilience because life keeps demanding it.

I'd like some boring months, actually. Some months where the most dramatic thing that happens is that I run out of milk and have to go to the store.

Only time will tell.

Thanks, Cookie

There's something absurd about finding profound meaning in a mass-produced slip of paper that came with your takeout order.

Fortune cookies aren't written for you specifically. They're generic wisdom designed to apply to anyone having any kind of day. They're the horoscopes of dessert.

And yet.

This one landed.

Maybe it's confirmation bias. Maybe I would have found meaning in whatever the fortune said because I needed to find meaning somewhere. Maybe "your lucky numbers are 4, 17, 23" would have hit just as hard if I'd been in a different mood.

Or maybe sometimes you crack open a cookie at exactly the moment you need to read exactly those words.

Maybe the universe works through fortune cookies.

Maybe that's not any stranger than anything else.

What I'm Learning

I don't know if I'm discovering strength or just surviving and calling it strength in retrospect.

I don't know if resilience is a gift or just what happens when you don't have a choice.

I don't know if the hard things are behind me or if I'm just in the eye of the storm.

But I know this: I opened a fortune cookie, and it said something I needed to hear, and I'm choosing to take it as a good sign.

Even if it's just paper and sugar and vague encouragement.

Even if I'm just a guy having a hard time who wants to believe that fortune cookies know things.

Sometimes that's enough.

Thanks, cookie.

I hope you're right.

If you're going through it, I hope your fortune cookie says something useful. And if it doesn't, I hope you find what you need anyway. You've got more strength in there than you think.