Keep Moving

We have to come to an understanding between us. Life will only be what life can only be. Nothing will ever be more, which I say with an emphasis on the word more because we will always want, we will always need, and although there will be moments when we are satisfied, truth be told, there will be times when we did not get our way.

There will be times when our hopes are up. Our expectations are great. We worked, we prayed and we did all that we could possibly do. But in the end, the result was not what we wanted.

There will also be times, and mark my words, there will be times when we are on empty. We gave all that we had; we worked and we bled. We sweated the hours and we strained to the point where it seemed as if we couldn’t take another step. We hit all the walls and the dead ends and we heard all the rejection—and just as we suspected the end to come; and just when we were about to turn away and hang our hat upon the ideas of another defeat —suddenly, a light came from an opening doorway to brighten our hope.

Suddenly, one of the doors we knocked upon began to open. Suddenly, our level of energy improved. We felt invigorated beyond anything we thought we had left. We surpass ourselves. We surpass our opinions and our trained beliefs. Suddenly, we find out that everything we did had its purpose —and suddenly, we find that spark, deep within our soul. We use that spark to start the engines in our mind that we thought had burned out a long time ago.

Make no mistake about this. Life will never meet us halfway. Nothing so valuable will ever come easy. Even if this does come easily, it takes work to keep something valuable —and this includes us as well.

There needs to be an understanding between us. We are allowed to have bad days. We are allowed to miss and make mistakes. We are allowed to screw up and we are allowed to fall. However, we are also allowed to try again. We have the right to improve. We have the right to get back up. We have the right to make corrections and change our direction at any given moment. From this point on, you and I reserve the right to improve whenever we choose.
Understand?

There will be times when it seems like we are at the end of our rope.
And I say fine.
We’re at the end.
Good. At least we know where we are.
I say in times like this, the only thing we can do is catch our breath and pull ourselves back up. Otherwise, we do nothing else but give into the saddest retreat because we never dared to get back up and try again.

Everyone at some point in their life will find themselves in a hole. This might be the result of a financial problem. This might happen because of a problem in their love life or their social life. There will be times when we look around and see our life is less than what we hoped for —we look around because we want better for ourselves, but fear has always kept us stuck —and we look at our jobs, we look at our bosses, we look at our desk that we’ve sat at for years and we look at our co-workers. We think about the gossip mills and the rumor factories that churn out character assassinations on a daily basis. We look around and we realize there is something else out there for us. There is something better. There is a calling to do something or be something else.

There will be times when we find ourselves on the verge of a new chapter. We will see the change coming.
We will know that something is on the way. And we might be afraid. We might be nervous. But no matter what happens, we cannot allow ourselves to be so afraid or so nervous that we fail to turn the page at our own expense.

I have been trying to create a new way for myself. I have been working hard over the last few years to build a platform.
Of course, there were times when I was accepted but there were times when I hit my limit on rejection. I have received rejection letters. I have been blown off. I have seen troubled times and felt that emptiness during the aftermath of my worst fallouts and downfalls.

Each morning, I come here to write my thoughts and find my inspiration.  I do this to reach out to you. I come here to rid myself of my troubles and to free my sadness.
Otherwise, it feels like I can’t breathe.
I come here because I have this place between you and me. I come here because this is sacred. I also come here because I realize the day anyone steals my smile is the same day I allowed them to steal me. And I can’t do that. Not on my watch.

It’s okay to shoot and miss. It’s okay to try and come up short. However, it’s not okay to internalize this or personalize it because doing either of the two will only dissuade us from giving our goals another shot.

Everyone is looking for their dare to be great opportunity as if it was a onetime occurrence —and sometimes we look back at the life we’ve lived. Maybe we think we missed it. Maybe we think we blew it. Maybe we look back with regret or wished we’d have said hello to someone else or goodbye to one less person.

I have news for you about this.

The most powerful words I have ever heard were, “There are times when it seems like we have to save our own life on a daily basis.” I say this to myself sometimes. It helps me.

There are times when the only thing we find in our pockets is emptiness. We are stuck on the ideas of regret and caught up in the belief that we missed our great big opportunity.  And there we are, stuck in the concept that we missed out big break. We missed our dare to be great opportunity. But the news I have for us is this; we can dare to be great at any given moment, on any given day, and whenever we choose.

We can change. We can switch systems. We can learn a new language and find new things to do. We can make new friends and meet new people.
We can teach ourselves about a new life.
We can teach others what it means to fall and get back up again.
We can do anything because we have a history, which means we have survived all the falls. We have learned the value of what it means to get back up again and regain our composure.

Nietzsche said, “That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.”

We do not get to choose what comes our way. The truth is I believe many of us would prefer to be a little less strong at times. But that choice is not ours to make.

Socrates said (and by the way, this is my favorite quote of all times,)
“If you don’t get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don’t want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can’t hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is law and no amount of pretending will alter that reality.”

We have to come to an understanding between us. There is no more room for pretending. There is no more time to waste. And, there will be no more regret as soon as we begin to take our chances and abandon our fears.

And don’t worry. It’s okay if we fall. It’s okay if we don’t make it right away. It’s okay if we fall down again. Don’t worry. we’ve been here before. It’s okay if we’re climbing up from the bottom of the hill because this will only make our rise to the top more glorious — and when the time comes and we reach our dreams, we will look around; we will see that everything we did, up until this point, had a reason and we will understand everything that we went through is what led us to this: Our purpose.

So get ready
Don’t look back
And above all:
Don’t be afraid to be first.