You can either live this life playing it safe or playing it from enthusiasm.

 

It’s not about winning or losing, those are concepts that belittle the bigger life feature which is to be unabashedly, unashamedly you.

 

It is necessary to both win and lose in life. The underpinning goal should not be so exclusive and limiting as to 'win or lose', but so inclusive and encompassing that it facilities a whole myriad of wonderful possibilities such as personal evolution, progression, change, contradiction and complexity. Those are the real dynamics you want – those are the real hunger busters that both stoke and satisfy the fire within.

 

The truth is that everything in this life is temporary and cyclic. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Sometimes you’re a ‘have’ sometimes a ‘have not’. The trick is to not allow your identity and choices be defined by temporary conditions and cyclic phases. If you do, you do yourself a grave disservice.

 

You were born - you ran and won the DNA race. So if you’re going to exist on earth you might as well leave a mark – your true and authentic mark. Not one that’s been pre-fabricated for you out of fear/routine/tradition by others. Not a shadow of what and who you were - but the real you stamped down in iron - fixed, dynamic, unique and complex.

 

If you want to be a something or someone, go do it – go be it. And don’t take obstacles as ‘signs’ against that path – take them as challenges and create a body of evidence toward your passionate pursuit of what you want. Use that body of evidence for your 'down days' to fire you up again and get going.

 

We can’t decide the day or hour that we die, we simply submit to death and go. When you’re in the ground, that’s it. There’s no re-run, there’s no ‘take 2’ – it’s done and dusted.

 

We fool ourselves with distractions, aversions and obstacles, all the time, trying to forget that time runs out on us all. But it does run out and our clocks do stop ticking. So why not be exactly as we are, what we are, and do all that is burning within us to trail blaze a truth that will not be foreign to those after us. To lead by example into the murky unchartered waters of our truth, leaving a legacy of inspiration, comfort and consolidation for others.

 

We can play it ‘safe’ short-term, be a person that’s not really us, do things that diminish our talent – or we can boldly dive into being the someone and doing the something that is truly sensational, true and paramount to our purpose.

 

The fear of failure and the fear of success is what holds many people back. But what’s more scary that failing or winning is doing absolutely nothing true to yourself. Because the truth is, you can even fail or win at that. Just as you can garner critique for it too. So no matter what you do - you can't hide. Life will get ya! May as well make it count - your way.

 

No I'm not saying go keep up with the joneses/kardashians or anyone like that. No I'm not saying go make a fortune and go from introvert to extrovert. It's about acknowledging your truth - the person you are and the things that make you sing. If solitude makes you sing and you've been posing as an extrovert - go enjoy solitude! If the creative world makes you happy and you did a law degree - go get creative and lose the degree guilt!

 

No amount of guilt, shame or self-blame can constitute enough validation for procrastination. If you want to do it now, you'll (probably) still want that same thing tomorrow, so might as well drop the excuses and go get it.

 

To sit in a job you hate for years.To speak and act in ways that conflict with your values. To diminish yourself by being complacent, apathetic about your own (un-)remarkable life. Does that sound like a life lived with true enthusiasm? Does it have to be a loud enthusiasm? No. Does it have to look like other peoples enthusiasm? No. The definition of enthusiasm is: 'interest, eagerness.' * So it can be as quiet as a mouse but profoundly joyful on the inside. And life is too big - great and wonderful to be lived without interest and eagerness.

 

There are no amount of defeats, victory or critique which are eternal – but death is. What taste, moment or feeling could be more isolating and destroying than regret before death? I'm not talking small regret, I'm talking about 'damn it why didn't I just be myself?!' - that one, the one that hurts privately, that only your mother would understand and have capacity to comfort.

 

So stop being small. Stop making excuses for yourself. The fear of losing, winning, starting or trying is not just not enough anymore. It’s your clock that’s ticking, so 'go get it'.
 

I’m right behind you – failing, winning, laughing and crying - but always, sensational.

 

#failureisflying #successiscyclic #truevictoryistruth

 

*Collins Pocket English Dictionary 

 

 

Written by Abby Kempe for AK Services LTD.