Choose Yourself Every Morning

0:00Sometimes it's what we don't say that echoes the loudest. What we don't do that has the greatest consequences, where we don't go, that ultimately gets us lost. I remember as a teenager applying to college, and I was working on the admissions essay, brainstorming with my grandmother, talking over her possible topics and approaches. She read me this quote that sometimes it attributed to Mark Twain, but that's beside the point the quote states, 20 years from now, you'll be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails, explore, dream, discover.

1:04I thought this was the perfect bridge to the next chapter of my life, the latest horizon, the newest adventure. I thought it was incredible, and it was. It was exactly what I needed, and so on to that next adventure I went. And here's the thing, as life unfolded this equation, somehow transformed from exploration, and dreaming, and discovery, into the question, well, what am I supposed to do? Somehow without my paying attention, life turned into a checklist. A question I couldn't get wrong, a test I needed to make sure I didn't fail. It's amazing how quickly we forget the infinite breath of life, because we're focusing on the dotted line before us. The one we're supposed to walk.

2:08Sometimes we're so fixated on what the expectation is that we don't ask ourselves where these expectations are coming from. Who is so significant and wise that they know what's best for you to a greater extent than you do? See how that's an important question, and also one you can lose in your periphery as you follow that dotted line before you. When you have a destination in mind, hopes, dreams, ambitions, well, that's an adventure. When someone else has a destination in mind for you, whether this authority is imaginary or not, that's obedience. And sometimes the greatest disservice we can do to ourselves is to not stop and think, to not stop and ask ourselves where we're going, and why. Do you remember when you were a child and you got into trouble, right? Sometimes you get sent to your room.

3:13And for me, this was agony. When it was punishment, I wanted to be anywhere but confined within those walls. I hated being sent to my room. And then finally, the door would open. My parents would say, Eddie, you can come out now. I'd go outside, play basketball for a little bit, and then oftentimes I'd find myself right back in my room. Happy, you know, playing with my toys, whatever I was doing, not a care in the world, and it's like, what changed? Nothing but the context. Same me, same room, same toys, same whatever I was doing. It was, however, no longer a punishment, and I think this realization is worth exploring. We may not realize. We may not even be able to articulate it. But I think we long for control over our lives. We long to walk our own path. And in this situation, the path led me right back to where I was.

4:15Sometimes, though, the path leads us in the opposite direction. Far away to distant worlds, the end destination is not as important as the fact that we chose it. That we asked ourselves why, and that we believe in the answer and immerse ourselves in its execution. So when Mark Twain talks about the things that we don't do, holding more weight in our hearts, it's because those things we tend to skip over are often the very things that breathe life into our souls. We'll go to school to get good grades, to get a 9-5, to get a promotion, to get a mortgage on a home. But the audacity to open that photography studio, the nerve to think you could rent a van and travel the country, the delusion to think you could start that routine that will get you in the physical

5:16shape you've always dreamed of. So we're lucky and fortunate to have the things that we have. The quality of life we lead now far exceeds those that came before us. Life is convenient, incredibly convenient. But what is convenience if it comes at the expense of purpose, of meaning in life because that's what steers the ship? A crisis of meaning ultimately mitigates everything else. There is no exploration without meaning. And without exploration tomorrow becomes a repetition of today, not an evolution of today. And what's incredible, truly incredible, that our purpose can be rediscovered, our paths redefined. How by having a long conversation with you guessed it yourself, by putting the phone in another room by disconnecting the Wi-Fi and spending time with you.

6:23Something along the lines of yourself, what matters to me in this world? Where am I going right now? Is where I'm going right now aligned with what matters to me in this world? And sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes no great, but what we have now is a foundation to work off of. An awareness that should be celebrated, that you created. It's so easy to walk through life and never have that conversation. It's so easy to sleepwalk to the tune of someone else's song, the beat of other people's drums. But when you open your eyes, you see the correlation between your thoughts and your action, your actions and your reality. You realize that when you wake up, that tendency to ask yourself what you have to do today to reflect on your problems,

7:24those questions you assumed were normal, that you never gave much thought to. Well now you'll see you can dismantle that notion. Now you'll see that if you can ask yourself what you have to do, you can just as easily ask yourself what you want to do, what you get to do, what life is inviting you to do. If you can reflect on your problems, you are just as capable of reflecting on the opportunity at your fingertips. If you can spend time dwelling on whether you're walking, the obligatory dotted line that's been laid out in front of you, you're just as capable of redrawing that line and allowing it to pull you into a new dimension. Listen again, 20 years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowline. Sail away from the safe harbor, catch the

8:27trade winds in your sails, explore, dream, discover, explore, but for you, wander down those paths that have for so long, Pete, your curiosity. Try things you once felt like other people were entitled to, but you'd never given yourself permission. Be that for yourself, because no one will come up to you and randomly give you that green light. Dream, because without building your castles in the air, as the row calls them, you live your entire life on the ground. You'll never hit targets that you don't create. And sure, there'll be a time that only you see the destination. Great, that's life, but with each step forward as it becomes more real for you, it will make sense to others as well. Trust each step, like it is in and of itself a miracle.

9:27And you'll find in time that that's exactly what each step was. And lastly, discover, discover who you are, what you're capable of becoming. As Emerson said, to be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. To forge your own path, build your own life, stay true to your own heart, is courage. So sail away, because you have the ability, because you are strong enough, and because the story you're about to write doesn't continue on until you turn the page on today's chapter.