Love and passion.

I’ll tell you this one time, and I want you to listen very very carefully…and never forget this. 

Whatever may stand between you and your dream, no matter the size of the mountain or the depth of the chasm, you can find a way to overcome these obstacles with love and passion. It may take more time to find this way – there will be times when you lose yourself – but you always have a choice. That choice, will always be yours. Don’t let anyone take that from you. Don’t take it away from yourself. Always remember, love and passion. 

It took me a very long time to think before I react to something. It’s incredibly hard. It’s really hard. Many many times I feel the blood rush up inside of me when I hear something or a situation goes horribly south for whatever reason, and I have to find a way to slow myself down. Because if I don’t check myself, I will either say something I don’t mean or pop. I’ve done that. I’ve done that in the past more than I would like to have to admit. But I saw the damage it caused and understood that things needed to change. It’s not about shutting yourself down either…no, it’s about something else entirely. 

Life is about finding outlets, compromises, and adapting your plans in order to keep going. 

Back when I was playing baseball, one of my pitching coaches told me that if I had a bad inning or needed to vent, I would get 30 seconds to find a place removed from the field and the team to scream, yell, bang away at anything, break stuff even (knowing I would pay for it) and then come back to the field to cheer on my teammates. He understood the importance of “getting it out.” What he also understood was the importance of being able to bring a player back to the present, especially pitchers, so that they could move forward in the game and focus on this pitch, this batter, these outs, this inning. 

That was a crucial lesson for me. 

It was a crucial lesson because I didn’t feel that I had to hide these negative emotions inside of me and could instead let them out and leave them where they were. In our society, we teach men (and women as well…but I’m speaking to men right now) to suppress their emotions because they will make you look weak…or as every man has probably been called at least once in his life…a p*ssy. We are taught that strength should be defined through hard bodies, taking what you want from this world, money, women, cars and having emotions as cold as ice. It’s a shame.

Because to me, as a young man who has been writing for almost 4 years about trying to become a better man and person…that doesn’t make a man at all. 

I’ve seen many different ways of living a life and many of them are very different from what was engrained into my mind starting at a young age. Do I want to have a nice car one day? I would love to because I love cars. Would I like a house? I think so, but I love apartments as well and I want to travel the world and see many many different places. Do I want a great physique, yes, of course…but not because someone told me to – because I wanted to see how far I could take my body and reach my potential. 

You see, I want many things out of my life, but not because they are in someone else’s bowl. I want them because I love doing them, having them…and most of all, appreciate them. I appreciate the things I have, the people around me, and the dreams that are in my mind – many of which are being constructed now in real life. 

This grand vision I have of life is far beyond just a dream, it’s a calling…and I know I must answer that call or live the rest of my life in regret. It’s a strong statement to make, but the feelings that are behind it are much stronger…and that’s how I know I am doing the right thing.

At the end of the day it comes down to love and passion. That’s really it. Without love for ourselves and others, we miss one of the greatest points of life. Without passion for our activities and dreams we never give ourselves the opportunity to master something and feel the pride of that process…or on another level, give the world our gifts. 

Love and Passion. 

Think about it. 

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project