In which our hero reminds his sons, and you dear reader, to strive, to excel to refuse to heed the lies of our fear and anxiety. And thereby defeat them
Behind you is unlimited love. In front of you is infinite possibility. Surrounding you is endless opportunity. You are limitless potential.
Here’s the truth about chasing your dreams. If you chase your dreams, if you truly focus on them, plan to make them reality, pursue them with a single-minded drive, you may not succeed. But if you don’t pursue your dreams, you cannot succeed.
There’s a saying: if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. It’s a stupid saying. It’s true enough, but it makes it sound easy. Doing what you love isn’t easy unless what you love doing isn’t worth doing. A better way to word that is if you do what you love, you’ll enjoy working every day of your life.
Sometimes you’ll face disappointment. Sometimes it’s going to get frightening. Sometimes you’ll feel humiliated. Sometimes you’ll feel overwhelmed. Sometimes you’ll have your self-esteem smashed to splinters. Sometimes it’ll just really suck all over.
You have to feel fear to be brave. You have to be sad to know what happy feels like. You have to push through life’s lows to get to its highs. If you let pain or fear or disappointment or worry stop you, you won’t take chances. If you don’t dare, you can’t win. If you don’t try, you can only fail.
This life is brief, unpredictable, and yours to bend to your will. You’ll have choices before you every day. These opportunities are gifts. These moments are gifts.
Once that moment has passed, once it’s the past, you can’t ever have it again. Be grateful for each unique moment. It’s your responsibility to pay full attention to each moment, and welcome the lessons, good and bad, each moment is trying to teach you.
It’s about today, not yesterday or tomorrow. You have today. Yesterday’s gone and can’t be changed. Tomorrow isn’t here yet. Do what you always done, get what you always got. If you don’t like where you are and what you have today, you didn’t work hard enough yesterday. If you want a better tomorrow, work harder today.
If you fear to grow, you can only stagnate and never really live. You only exist. Better to fail heroically, to stumble and fall to your knees in glorious effort, than to sit in comfortable misery.
Why put limits on your spirit and a cage around your heart? This is what crushed my soul and broke my mind. I feared to excel and succeeded at failure. Once I recognized there are no limits to my potential and opportunity, I began to strive. Once I began to strive, I began to succeed. Learn from my mistakes and don’t repeat my cowardice. I love you.