I don't know if anybody out there can relate, but I have a hard time with life sometimes, where sometimes it's great, but a lot of times for me it's really hard, and no matter how I'm feeling, I always find myself struggling with certain pattern to behave. I find myself stuck in like ice, in the same thing that keeps repeating over and over again
and I'm just like: „How do I end up? How am I in this?“
And it's that moment where you can separate yourself from that situation and you look at it and you see it for what it is and you're able to then do something about it. Like you've now broken out of that circle. There are so many circumstances that relate to this situation, but I know that for me, when I'm inside myself, when I'm in my own head, this place right here between my ears, is a bad neighborhood and I should not be in there alone.

I can't be in there by myself.

So when I'm in that my whole life gets thrown. If I'm in there I don't say nice thing to myself. There's another Chester in there that takes me down and I find that it could be whether it's substances or whether behavior or whether depressive stuff or whatever. If I'm not actively doing getting out of myself and being with other people, like being a dad, being a husband, being a bandmate, being a friend, helping someone out, like if I'm out of myself, I'm great. But if I'm inside all the time I'm horrible on this. That was kind of where I don't like my mind right now, stacking up problems that are so unnecessary, you know. It's the moment where it's like realizing: I drive myself nuts. Actually thinking that all these are real problems, like all the stuff that's going on in my mind is actually real. I'm doing this to myself, regardless of whatever that thing is. So this is like conscious awareness of that thing and when you can step back and look at something, you're actually elevating yourself consciously. You're enlightened at that point right to a certain degree, and this is that moment of enlightenment where you go, you know. I could do something about this and by doing it I can move forward and get unstuck from this. I can live with life on life's terms, I can experience the whole spectrum of humanity, and not want to get out of it, whether it's happiness, sadness or whatever.

When I'm in it I, just want to get out of.

Last year I was a mess, I got total wreck, you know. I think for a lot of people it's like: „If you're successful like all the sudden, like you get a cream, like you get some card in the mail that says you're going to be totally satisfied and happy for the rest of your life", it doesn't happen. Life for me happens the way it always happens. The only difference is I'm in Linkin Park. What goes on inside my head has always been. When I'm not working on that my life gets messy, and that's how the inspiration for all these songs came, from conversations about life and what was going on as friends, as husbands, as fathers, as business partners. We were all talking about what's going on in all aspects of our lives and we realize we've all gone through some really crazy stuff. I feel like I understand people or humanity a little bit differently.

I've been through some pretty crazy stuff and that's a positive.

Finding the positive in all these things, that's what we always try to do.

-Chester Bennington-