Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.
Arthur Ashe
Be comfortable with where you are with what you’ve got because it’s not what you got but what you give that measures who you are and where you’ll go.
Start right now, right here, right after you read this. I’m not sure how you stumbled you way here to read this, but you have and when you are done, it’s time to begin.
Whatever you do, don’t look back. The past can’t help you. It’s time to write a new past starting today. Looking into the future won’t help you either because you cannot see what is to come, and what is to come sometimes dreams bigger than what you can imagine.
Start where you are, being who you are. Don’t look at the things you don’t have. Don’t count your mistakes. Don’t see all the things you lack. Put that aside for the moment and make a list of gratitude. List all the things that you have, and begin to plan how to use the things and the people in your life, to get where you want to go.
Finally, do what you can.
The problem with most dreamers is that they pour gasoline on their effort, watch it burn quickly and powerfully, and soon let the fire die, and let their dreams burn to ashes. So do what you can. Do today, what you can’t do tomorrow. I realize that you can save the work from today and get to it tomorrow, but what about the work of tomorrow, where does it go? And if you miss a day, or a week, or a month? How will you catch up?
So don’t worry how well you can do something. Don’t worry about the distractions, about the imperfections, about the frustrating waves of disappointment and frustration that might overwhelm you. You are not a hamster in a cage. If anything, you’re a beautiful, rat, who adapts, and relentlessly goes about her business.
You are you and be grateful for you because you have a reach nobody else has. You have dreams nobody else had. You have a chance to live a life nobody else will ever live, but you have to begin and you don’t need a plan to begin.
Start right now, and make plans as you go. Don’t wait until you’re ready, begin and work hard to catch up. Use your talents and work your ideas. Use what you have. Do what you can.
This is the not so secret recipe for success. This is the road to happiness. This is a way to find purpose and meaning.
