I can take some things hard sometimes. I really think everyone can. For me, it doesn’t much come down to being able to respond well to situations…I think I know who I am, or at least who I am working on being at this point. Last night, I removed myself from a situation that I definitely didn’t feel great in. In a room full of people where I had been connecting with everyone and just feeling great, I quickly felt something overcome me as two main events happened. They happened back to back…and I stood there with a friend feeling completely cut off. It was time to leave.

As I was walking home, I knew the feeling inside of me was based of a “Why is this happening to me?” feeling. The walk over the next 5 minutes, I paced home patiently with my thoughts, opened the door to my room, put my running clothes on…and ran.

Ever since my knee surgery and even before that because the pain was so bad, I haven’t been able to run. I was always pretty nervous about what it would feel like. Last night, I just put on my stuff and ran. I took to our campus loop…music in my ears. I ran hard. Around a mile or so it started to really all come out. Thoughts of hits and misses, thoughts of paths taken, and questions of what I was doing. What was my style of doing things? How can I learn the most from the events I am going through…how can I respond to them better…how can I manage the two garbage men producing thoughts in my head better. I took to the loop again.

I came back home, drenched. But that burning feeling in my calves was something I missed. I realized that for what I want to accomplish in life, you can’t also be a rock star. Those two ways of doings don’t mix. And by rock star I don’t mean superstar…I am talking about the rock star lifestyle. I want to achieve big things in this world. I want to make a mark and such an impression on the world that people will be forever changed by it. This is the goal I have set out to accomplish. Along the way I know that I will come across paths that will try to take me away from this one, and while I may stray temporarily, the focus must be on my path.

You know, you can get all the advice in the world from someone about what to do in a given situation, and it is fantastic to listen because advice is a form of nostalgia that is repainted and cleaned from the past. It is a nugget that can teach you many things. But what is your decision. What would you do. Because in the end that is all what this life is about right? The power of decision. Of free will? You have the opportunity to change the whole entire course of your life in one decision. That is an amazing thing. For a little bit of time, I forgot about the power of my ability to choose. The worst that can happen is it doesn’t work out or someone says no etc. But after that…you can look yourself in the mirror and said you were you. You weren’t living someone else’s path. You were living yours. I will never forget again.

Love. Passion. Never Quit.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project