The following blog posts were written on my original blog over five years ago. This article is part of my 37 Life Lessons From My Youth Series. Note: I’ve matured a lot since then and my “voice” has changed since. Enjoy.
It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it’s called Life.” – T. Pratchett
People make the mistake of putting off things for the future. We think that we’ll always have the time to come back to it in the grand scheme of things.
But honestly, we take our time for granted. For most people, that time never comes.
The view from halfway down is always full of regrets – when you realize what opportunities you could’ve taken, but didn’t.
The reason you procrastinate is because you either lack desire, or you lack self-belief.
Some people believe that they desire something but they don’t. They don’t understand the difference between “want” and “desire”.
The feeling of “want” isn’t a strong feeling. “Want” doesn’t warrant action and it isn’t more compelling than comfort.
“Desire” is a feeling that demands action. It’s a necessity to your life and you are more than willing to got after it.
For example, I’ve always “wanted” a tattoo or to tint the windows on my cars. But I never do it. I just think it’d be nice to have.
Some could say this is a matter of laziness or a lack of energy.
Instead I’d argue that laziness is simply a lack of desire.
Every day there are people who go to jobs they hate to make a living. They go because they see the necessity of going to work and desire to make money.
Whether they’re tired or not doesn’t make a difference.
Because desire stems from the mental state of necessity.
For example, there was a time when I was obscenely obese. I looked in the mirror and I hated myself and how I looked. So I made the decision that if I didn’t lose this weight, I would kill myself.
In six months, my obsessive desire made it happen. Until then I couldn’t stop thinking about my goal until it was accomplished.
Because to me, I didn’t “want” to lose weight – I needed to lose weight.
When you desire something, more than life itself, you will work to make it happen.
Everyone has something that they want more than life itself. But that something, that desire, is never acted upon by most people.
That desire is your calling.
The calling is always calling you. Because no matter where you go, it wants you to follow it.
It flirts with your imagination via your inner voice and intuition.
This is the Universe reaching out to you. It’s trying to invest in you and create the best reality it can through you.
But people don’t listen and people don’t follow through with it.
They lack self-belief.
The world has more faith in these people than they do in themselves.
Anyone will pursue something if they have the self-belief that they can do it. Nobody will pursue something if they have self-doubt.
Life’s opportunities end where your self-doubt starts. Because when you doubt yourself, you believe all your efforts will lead to failure.
People are afraid of the darkness because they don’t know what lies within it. But there is a difference between how a self-believer and a self-doubter handle the darkness.
The self-doubter doesn’t trust himself to make it to the other side. He doesn’t see himself capable of “surviving” the follow through.
Meanwhile the self-believer does trust that he will make it to the other side. To him, it doesn’t matter if he’s never done it before or if he’s scared.
Instead the self-believer looks at darkness dead in the eye and then takes a leap of faith.
I sat in my car thinking of all the horrific things I was told would happen if I left home and never came back.
“Nobody out there is nice. Nobody out there gives a shit about you! Only I give a shit about you.”
“You’re a piece of shhit and you’ll be living in the f***ing streets.”
“You guys are my bitches and you’re lucky to have me.”
“You’re stupid and you don’t know shit! You don’t even know how to wipe your own ass.”
“You’re all f***ing worthless.”
“You will never make it.”
Then I thought about my brothers that I’d leave behind. This whole time I thought I’d be able to take them away from this place.
But I couldn’t.
My brothers were the only reason for me to stay. But I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t stand having another nervous breakdown in the bathroom anymore.
I couldn’t stand constant internal trembling, snapping sensations in my head, and laughing and crying maniacally to myself anymore. Looking at my pitiful self in the mirror.
Guilt. Shame. Feelings of failure. The voices telling me to pick the devil I know over the devil I don’t.
With tears in my eyes, I punched the steering wheel. Then I punched it again. And again.
Until I cried out “NO!” and hit my head against the wheel.
Tears falling down my face.
“Dammit… MY LIFE… BELONGS TO ME!”
I turned the key in the ignition. Took a long look at the dark road ahead of me. Then I drove off and never looked back.
The person with self-belief can be just as scared of the self-doubter. But something in him believes he can make it.
So he takes his leap of faith and he realizes the truth –
You transform in the face of fear.
Your mental program may tell you “don’t do this” and “you can’t do that”.
But when you actually confront your fear, your mental program is faced with reality – You Can Do It.
The sensation of fear in your body isn’t fear. The sensation in your body is your being reprogramming itself.
Because holding onto all that self-doubt no longer makes sense.
So don’t doubt your gut instinct. Don’t ignore that inner voice.
It’s leading you to the path of who you need to be.
