Live the life you’ve got and not the one you think you’ve been promised.
Life fully. Take what you’ve go and do something with it. The great lie we believed sometime in the past is that happiness or success belongs to special people. We like to identify the outliers, those with talent, those that are lucky, and everything in between. Of course, when you look at a person after they have done something it is easy to sift through their life and believe it was meant to be. It is not that easy to do it before they become who they are or accomplish what they accomplish.
Nobody thought Albert Einstein was going to do much mathematically when he struggled in High School, or was bored, but it doesn’t matter. The Albert Einstein we hold in such esteem was not Albert Einstein until he became Albert Einstein. But I bet you wouldn’t have hinged your bet when he struggled. I bet you wouldn’t imagine the musical career Ed Sheeran would have, if you knew him when he was younger, before everyone else, before it was acceptable to say I told you so.
There is nothing particularly special about any of us. I don’t mean that we don’t have different skills or talents, I just mean that having something is different than doing something with it. Now, if there is nothing particularly special about any of us, why not embrace the premise that there is something very special about every single one of us. Why not embrace the idea that you have something to share, that you will have to struggle to get it out, that it won’t be easy, but it will be worth it.
I think you need to become your own Albert Einstein and Ed Sheeran.
Live the life you’ve got and don’t whine or cry over the life you want. Have and want are two divergent paths. Have helps you to be grateful and present. It cares about your being and works with what is tangible and real. Want on the other hand, ignores and shuns that which you have, and compares it against what could be. Want is a losing proposition. Everything about who you are and everything that you do will look awfully small and insignificant when compared to something that is so perfect, yet is nothing but an illusion because it doesn’t exist.
I am not saying that you don’t need dreams. I believe you need to bring your dreams to the foreground and work your ass off to get at them. What I am saying is that letting who you wish you were or analyzing all the things you haven’t reached will not help you be alive today. The tears of tomorrow will wipe away your smile of today, and that smile is worth it. That smile is powerful, and leads to more smiles. A full human life is one of the most powerful forces in the universe. It should be listed as a true wonder of the world.
You have to live with what you got. Take what you got and give what you can. We’ll all be better for it, and I will bet you, bet you my soul, that what you want will come a lot sooner, if you embrace what you’ve got and don’t apologize for who you are.
Cover photo generously provided by photographer Danica Tanjutco via unsplash.com
