I’m not going to wish you luck. I don’t wish people luck. In fact, I think it’s one of the worst things that can happen to you. Because if you are lucky, you’ll never have any knowhow of making it happen again. If you are lucky, and along comes the ways of this life and tears it all down – burns it all down in front of you – you will have no idea how to build it back.
Sometimes we have to break things to build them the way we want them.
A long time ago I didn’t have that choice but I learned the lesson very well. I watched it all burn around me and it was only until the day that I thought about the imagery of burning matches that I came across an understanding of what it truly meant to stand in your flames. When you lay down when things get hard you will certainly turn to ash. But if you stand in them with faith, they most certainly will put themselves out in time.
Don’t be afraid to look at what is going on in your life and start tearing it down to the studs. Often of times when we are young we don’t have much choice in how things are built. They are built for us. But as time goes on and we have more and more control over ourselves, we might begin to realize that we don’t like the way things were made for us initially. Or, we can fall into the trap of thinking that it’s just the way it is and theres nothing we can do about it.
Nothing is farther from the truth.
We can change our reality in a heartbeat. Of course there are always consequences, but the fact of the matter is – we indeed have the power to change it. The question then really becomes “Am I willing to accept the consequences that come along with these changes?” Take the changes that people make at the beginning of every year. We all want to make these big changes, but when we start getting sore or it begins to hurt, we quickly revert back to what we know is easy.
Resistance is a fantastic indicator.
Resistance tells you that you are starting to hit new ground. Resistance demands that you give more effort in one way or another to be able to conquer what is in front of you. It makes you a stronger person, that is, if you decided to look for it instead of shy away from it.
To be honest, for a long time I have avoided resistance. Not in everything, but in many things. I guess I have avoided this resistance for some time because of fear. I know I’ve been talking about fear a lot lately but the more that I come to terms with what’s actually going on with me the more I am able to let it all out into the open. That’s what this writing has always been about – being completely and utterly honest with myself. Sometimes it takes me a little while longer to get there, but it always eventually uncovers itself.
You can easily get stuck in limbo. That feeling of knowing where you want to go but sticking to what you have known. Even though you might be doing things that are heading you in the direction you want to, mentally you can get stuck there. It might sound strange, but as John Wooden use to say, “Never mistake motion for action.”
Just because you are moving around doing things doesn’t mean you’re actually doing…anything.
Opportunities will fly by if you don’t give yourself the chance to grab them. Often times they look a lot like work. Nothing impressive was built without a significant amount of work behind it. There was a saying in Hollywood that said that overnight success takes 10 years. From the music I listen to, the books I read, and everything else I digest content wise that seems to keep coming back to me again and again. 10 years. I’m just 4 in.
When I think about how much I have learned over this past 4 years it astounds me. But when I try to grasp what will happen when I even double this time…that becomes much more intriguing. I’ve changed this much in 4 years…God only knows what I’m going to be like in 8 years. I can wholeheartedly say that without writing and what I am doing here almost every day, I would be in a very very different place than I am now. In truth I only remember some of the memories of myself before this time. I remember the things that happened and the way I felt, but I don’t remember specifically the type of person I was. All I can remember was that feeling of being a shell. This is just a testament to how much you can change if you put your mind to it.
Don’t be afraid to pick it all apart and start over again. I call this The Auditing Phase. Looking at your life and understanding how you arrived, who you are, and who you want to be. I don’t think it’s a bad thing to be ever morphing and changing for the better. There are still a lot of things that I want to create for myself and the only way to get there is to give it some effort every single day.
Don’t miss the opportunities to create things. You will feel them stack up on you if you do miss them. They will becoming these looming balls of stress in the back of your mind and if you don’t take care of them, they will eventually disappear in the worst way possible: they will vanish. Your dreams and goals, while they are yours alone, can disintegrate if you don’t give them the attention they need. Keep that in mind when you procrastinate…that every second you wait to start something is a second closer to it’s demise.
Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project