Life is just a ride, and some people complain when they get to the end that it's over, and they don't get that life isn't a destination, but life is about how much you enjoy the ride, because you can't get off until you die. Those are the rules of the game. I didn't make those rules. I don't like them. Few people like them. The point is not if you like them, or if you get to change them, but that you have to cope with them. You find a way of living in this world that works for you. You have to : if you don't you are constantly fighting an unwinnable war on every front.

“What is the point of living? To take the pain out.” is a sign above Philip Glass' desk in his apartment in America.

We have a choice. We choose to either make peace with the universe, or to rage against it. We choose to either want to change it, or change ourselves. We choose to be happy or not. We choose to accept what we cannot change, or change what we cannot accept.

Life is hard sometimes. All the time. There's always something to do. Some victory to win. Washing up to do, or an insane child who won't quit rubbing jam on the television. Always something to fight. It never stops. Ever. Life is like the wall. The tennis player keeps batting at the wall. The wall keeps batting back. Every damn time. It's fucking relentless. Life is a wall. You just keep batting it back. Every few hours you need to sleep. Every few hours you need to eat. Every few hours you need to piss and shit. Every few hours everything needs to be attended to. Every few days you need to shave, or grow a beard. Every few weeks you need to cut your hair or grow it long. Life man, it's fucking relentless. And it never stops. Until you are dead.

And in the rules of the world, we need money. Money to buy things with, or money to keep a roof over our head, or money to buy food, or money to keep debtors off our back, or money for a new toilet. Always money. You cannot change the world. It's the way it is. The only option to earn enough money to need not to work again. But you can't live without it. So you need to work, or have incredibly rich parents. It's the way the world is. You cannot change it. You can change your need for money, and go live in a cave if you need to. But you cannot change the fact that to participate in civilisation in any way, you need to have at the very least, some money.

You cannot change it, so raging against it will not help you. You have to accept it. You have to live with what life is. Often boring, often expensive, often repetitive. (Here's some other things people do in a repetitive fashion : cuddle, laugh, eat, dance, love, orgasm, breathe). You take the good out of the bad. Life as it is is not a mechanism designed to offend you. The universe rolls out oblivious. Not cruelly, but without a care for you. The path of the world remains with not a moments consideration for you. The only thing we can do is live with it. Survive it. Live through this, whatever it is. Because there is nothing else you can do. If you surrender you lose. It's a tough game. The rules are unfair. But it is unchanging. Immovable.

And yes, being surrounded by cat shit, or taking the bins out, or finding too much month at the end of your money absolutely sucks. But it is what happens.

The misery is mediocre – ordinary – boring – trivial. There are no major life events worthy of such misery. If you had cancer, sure, furious anger and rage would be understandable. If you were victim to elements you cannot control then these would be understandable. If you were burying your mother at 22 the fury would be understandable. Dying of a terminal disease. Facing a major life crisis. Sitting on a beach with a donut is not a justifiable excuse for being absolutely fucking furious at the world.

You take the good out of the bad. You see the world for what it is, not what it isn't. You can do. That can't do attitude will get you nowhere. You cope. You bend with the wind, or you break. You see the glass half-full. You have to.

And this is the mission of life : to enjoy it. We're all here together, trapped on a ball of rock, circling around a huge fire 93,000,000 miles away, with friends, with love. We may often get tired, or fed up, we may often find it hard (and life is meant to be hard), but we're here and we can't change the world, only the way we see it. It's beautiful, bonkers, and often bizarre. Lets make the most of it whilst we can. We only live once. We're all here, trapped on the ride. We might as well enjoy it.

Take it from me : I stood on Beachy Head in May 2007, and debated very seriously jumping to my death. It was only the little hands of my lovely son, now seven, which stopped me. I've seen the darkest moment with my own eyes. Right here, right now, is not worth it. Don't fight reality. You cannot win. You must take happiness wherever and however you can find it. It's rare. And gone in an instant.