(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Epilogue: Part One – Being S.A.F.E. [1] ['Douglas Schonenberg', 'Chitown Kev', 'Thom Hartmann', 'Belinda Ridgewood', 'Bill In Portland Maine'] Date: 2026-08-18 When the journey becomes who you are When I first began writing this book, I thought S.A.F.E. was just a clever acronym to help me explain the idea behind four words: Surrender. Acceptance. Forgiveness. Evolution. These four words became my philosophy; a way to help me rebuild my life after everything that I had gone through leading up to and after my car accident. After I came up with the acronym, I thought that I needed to put a word in front of it. Just the word S.A.F.E. didn’t feel like enough. I wanted to create a phrase that would catch someone’s attention and make them wonder what those four letters meant. So after I thought about it, I added the word Being. Being S.A.F.E. Being S.A.F.E. sounded good. It sounded like something we all wanted to be. And then I promptly forgot about the word that I had put in front of S.A.F.E. I focused on Surrender, Acceptance, Forgiveness, and Evolution. I never talked about Being because, at the time, I didn’t think that it meant anything. But somewhere along the way, as I continued to understand S.A.F.E.; as I tried to live the lessons I was learning; and eventually start to write this book; I realized something that had never occurred to me when I first thought of the title for this book. Those four words were never my final destination. They were the path that I would travel to find myself. Surrender taught me where to place my energy. Acceptance taught me to stop fighting reality. Forgiveness taught me to make peace with my past. Evolution taught me to keep moving forward. Each idea led naturally to the next, helping me to find the person that I had been searching for. Each word prepared me for the next one, the next lesson. And as I went along I began to understand that the lessons that each word taught were all interconnected. One lesson, one word did not show the entire picture. Only by combining the lessons that each of the four words taught would I learn the tools necessary to find myself. And as I finished understanding the lessons from those four words, I realized something else. There was something else that I needed to understand. The most important word in the title of this book wasn’t S.A.F.E. It was Being. The word I simply added to make a catchy title. For most of my life, I thought I was supposed to become someone. Become successful. Become respected. Become happy. Become healed. Become enough. Even after my accident, I was still trying to become someone else. I wanted to become the person that I had been before the accident. I wanted to become the person that I always thought that I was supposed to be. I wanted to become the person that I believed that circumstances had taken away from me. But somewhere along this journey, I stopped asking: “Who am I supposed to become?” And I began to ask something much simpler: “Who am I?” And more importantly, for the first time, I was willing to accept a simple answer. Not the old me. Not the perfect me. Not the person I thought I should be. I am simply ME. The person sitting beneath this tree. The person carrying every experience that brought him here. The person who was hurt. The person who failed. The person who was abandoned. The person who made mistakes. The person who survived. The person who changed. The person who is still changing every single day. And suddenly, I understood the importance of the entire phrase: Being S.A.F.E. The four words aren’t the destination. They are the tools that helped me along my journey. Surrender. Acceptance. Forgiveness. Evolution. And what did those four words lead me toward? Not perfection. Not certainty. Not a life without pain. They led me toward the ability to simply… BE. To be present in today instead of trapped in yesterday. To be grateful for my life without pretending that everything that happened to me was helpful. To be curious instead of being afraid of what I don’t know. To be compassionate toward myself and others. To be imperfect. To be learning. To be growing. To be changing. To be human. And to finally understand that I don’t have to become someone else to have value. Looking back at everything, I think that is what Being S.A.F.E. has been trying to teach me all along. Not how to become the perfect version of myself. But how to finally be at peace with my imperfections. And perhaps that is the difference between becoming and being. We become who we are by what happens to us. We evolve by how we respond to what happens to us. And through that evolution, we become more of who we are. The experiences that we celebrate, the experiences that we wish never happened, the people who love us, the people who hurt us, our successes, our failures, our losses, and our triumphs, help to shape the person that we are becoming. When we hold onto our past, we stand still. When we stand still, we don’t move forward. If we don’t move forward, then we don’t evolve. If we don’t evolve, then we will never discover who we can be. Being who we are is not the end of becoming. Rather, it is what our becoming creates, because becoming never really ends. There will always be another lesson. Another mistake. Another question. Another hill. Another place where I will have to surrender, accept, forgive, and evolve. Being doesn’t mean that I have arrived. It doesn’t mean that I have figured everything out. It doesn’t mean that I will never struggle again. Being simply means that I no longer need to become someone else. I can continue becoming while simply being myself. And I think that is the final lesson that life has been trying to teach me through Being S.A.F.E. For years, I thought that my purpose was to become someone. Now I understand that the goal was never to become someone else. It was to become more completely me. Someone who is: Still growing. Still learning. Still evolving. Still becoming. And finally, just… Being. Thank you for sitting under the tree with me and listening to my musings. If you enjoyed this musing, please consider subscribing to my Substack, Musings Under the Tree. I write about empathy, personal growth, Being S.A.F.E., politics from time to time, and whatever else wanders through my mind while sitting under the tree. https://musingsunderthetree.substack.com/p/welcome-to-my-tree?r=1s6ofh [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/8/18/800085974/community/epilogue-part-one-being-s-a-f-e/ Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/