I am not throwing away my shot
I am not throwing away my shot
Hey yo, I’m just like my country
I’m young, scrappy and hungry
And I’m not throwing away my shot

— Alexander Hamilton from Hamilton, The Musical

The instant you were born a hand reaches over and taps a button. You are too young to hear it, but far off in the distance a faint tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock starts to echo in your soul. Your life’s countdown timer has been started.

Now fast forward to where you are currently. For the majority of us, at some point life has told us that we need to settle. For the good of all those around us and because of decisions we’ve made previously, we shouldn’t reach for the stars anymore. People who reach for the stars only fall further and get hurt more. You’ve probably heard some things like:

• “Settle for that job because you have bills to pay.”
• “Pick that more common sense major because you’ll never be able to support yourself or your future family if you do that other thing you really want to do.”
• “Go with what you know.”
• “Play it safe.”
• “Don’t rock the boat. It only causes conflict.”
• “Blend in so no one sees you. The nail that sticks out gets the hammer, you know.”

Life has been teaching us these lessons (and others) since we were young. As a result, we’ve learned to live our life in the realm of “realism.” We’ve resigned ourselves to doing what we think we’re supposed to do. We’ve been told we’re not good or smart or beautiful enough to do that thing that we’ve always wanted to do. So we don’t do it. We never even try.

No One Gets Out Alive

Here’s the reality of your life: You only get so many trips around the sun. Every day we get closer and closer to the buzzer going off on our countdown clock. We don’t get to know when it will go off, we just know that at some point it will. You only get one shot at this life.

If that’s true (and it is), then that fact should hold some bearing on what we are doing with our one life. It should stop us and make us ask some hard questions. Questions like:

• What is it that you really want to be doing with your life?
• Are you doing that thing? If the answer is no, then why not?
• Are you settling for less than your best life?
• Are you just coasting, letting life lead you instead of you leading your life?

We’ll explore these and other topics in future posts, but for now I just want to get you thinking. We didn’t start out in life with a desire to settle. We started out with hopes and dreams and plans. Somewhere along the way we lost them.

It’s time we found them again.

I’m completely set up to be successful in my writing endeavor this morning.

I got up early. I’ve learned over time that if I want to get some writing done then I have to do it before anyone else is up.

The whole house is quiet, it’s dark outside. I’ve got my morning beverage of choice. I open my computer and my writing app. I put my headphones on and play some music that I’m sure will help me get the words out of my head and onto this page. Then I start writing.

An hour later I’ve got bits and pieces of a lot of things, but none of it makes any sense. It’s all over the place and none of it ties together. I’ve written about three different topics because I can’t seem to focus on any one thing. The time I had for writing has come and gone.

“I’m such a hack,” I tell myself. “There’s no way you’ll ever be a real writer.”

It’s in these moments that I have a choice. I can choose to believe what I’m telling myself, or I can choose to believe the truth.

If I choose to believe the lies that I’m telling myself (as I often do) then I’ve just enlarged the trench that I am constantly digging in my spirit that says that I am no good. I add another bucket of gasoline to the fire inside of me that keeps me from doing hard things.

But if I choose to believe the truth about me and what I’m doing, then I have the opportunity to fill in that trench of self-hatred a little bit. I dump a cup of cold water on that fire of self-doubt and contempt.

The truth is that writing is hard. No writer sits down at their desk and comes up with the perfect words day after day. Writing is a muscle and not every workout goes according to plan. There are hiccups and bumps in the road all the time.

The truth is that success isn’t defined by the quality of the words that I write on any given day. Success is that I sat down and gave it a shot. Success will be showing up again tomorrow. Success is in the body of work created over time, not in the one thing that I happened to write (or not write) today.

The truth is that I am loved and cared for by my God and my family whether or not I ever write another word again. They believe in me and what I’m doing. They’ve got my back. That truth alone should help me continue to pursue this goal even when the days are bleak and the writing is bad.

I want to encourage you. Even on your worst days, when everything seems to go wrong, remember:

• Life is hard and no one is perfect.
• Your success in life isn’t dependent on your performance today. It’s determined by showing up day after day and giving it a shot.
• You are loved and cared for by someone beyond what you can believe right now. Keep going.

God loves me. I know because He’s told me so.

No, that’s not from some song that children learn to sing in church. I’ve literally heard the voice of my Father tell me that He loves me.

Side note: If you’ve never heard God speak actual words to your heart, please know that this is available to you. Better, He is available to you. He wants to speak to you.

His voice is a wonderful, beautiful sound.

It seems like lately when I ask God what He would like to say to me, the first words I hear are “I love you.” It’s almost like He wants to establish that fact before we go any further. Anything else (okay, everything else) is secondary to His love for me.

I’m not a particularly driven individual, but I do like to have a plan and an agenda. I like to make lists and then check things off of them. I’m not highly relational as a default.

But God is. He is very relational. So when I’m praying I’m mostly praying things like “here is my list of things that I want to cover today.” God is so very gracious with me. When I’ve finally gone through my list of things, and I remember to ask Him what He would say to me, He seems to almost always start with “I love you.”

I’m not totally sure why, but it throws me every time. I want to hear His thoughts on all the things I’ve just gone through and He’s more interested in what my heart needs than what I want to accomplish. In essence, He’s saying “Whoa. Slow down there bro. I know you have all these things, and I’m glad you know that you can bring them to me. But, before we cover those things, let’s take a second and acknowledge this relationship. Sit for a second and know that I care for you and your heart WAY MORE than I care about all the things that you want to accomplish. You are more important to me that what you do or don’t do.”

He thwarts my plans for efficiency in the most glorious, caring way possible. I’m always taken aback. It throws off my groove. But that’s EXACTLY what God’s love does. There is nothing like it in this world and it is meant to completely throw off everything. God’s love is meant to be disruptive. It is meant to completely change your life.

Fall is my favorite season. Cooler temperatures and leaves that burst into brilliant shades of yellow, orange, and brown make my heart happy. It almost feels as if the universe is sending a signal to the rest of the world that it’s time to start picking things up and putting them away for the year. That it’s time to start slowing down.

I don’t think we get that message.

As a general rule, we are so busy. In particular, in the fall, we ramp things up and get them going again at a breakneck pace. School is back in session, sports start back up again, and we are inundated with the realization that Christmas is only four months away. It’s time to get busy.

So we live in this weird juxtaposition. Nature seems to whisper to us “Slow down.” If we even can hear nature’s whisper, we just shout back “We don’t have time to slow down. We’re much, much too busy!”

I think we’ve got it backward.

I wonder how different we would be as a people if we followed the rhythms of nature when it came to how we worked and rested. What if we worked hard for six days a week and then actually rested on the seventh? What if we took every seventh week off? What if we did the same every seven months? Or years? Imagine how much of a difference we could make in our own lives and in the lives of the people we influence if we could literally take every seventh year off. Wow.

I know the majority of us are not farmers, but what if, instead of following the whims of our current society, we instead followed the planting seasons? We worked our butts off to plant our thing in spring, worked just as hard maintaining that thing through summer, and then reaped our harvest in the fall. After the harvest we wrapped it all up and took the winter to rest from our work.

How would we be different if we didn’t try to fit all of our rest into 2 weeks of vacation and maybe some time off around Thanksgiving and Christmas?

These are just some thoughts I’ve been playing with, but I think there’s something there. I’ll write more about this in a future post, for sure. I want to find the right rhythm of work and rest for me and my house. I’m wishing the same for you and yours.

Spoiler Alert: It’s because you’ve chosen to be there.

You are where you are in your life because of the choices that you’ve made in the past. Consequently, the choices that you make today will determine where you are tomorrow. So it stands to reason that if you want a different life, you should make different choices.

You don’t have to settle for the 9 to 5 that you hate. You don’t have to come home and watch 5 hours of TV every night. You don’t have to hang around that same crowd of people that just sit around and bash everything and everyone; those same people that will bash this post because they don’t want to change.

You can be different. It’s your choice.

You can decide that you want a different career. You can study, work hard, and make the choices necessary to get the job or own the business that sets your heart on fire. Instead of watching TV every night, spend that time working on your side hustle. You can get a new group of friends. People that uplift and affirm each other and can see the good in life and can speak into your heart instead of tearing it out.

Now, I realize you may not have started out in the best of circumstances. You were born into this or that family. You didn’t choose to not have a dad or a mom. It wasn’t your choice to be abused. I want to acknowledge these. They are completely and totally valid. They happened and they matter. The thing is, you DO NOT have to let that thing define you. You can rise above your circumstances. You can be different. It starts with your choices.

Study anyone who has made it “big” and I guarantee you will hear many stories of people that started out in pretty bad situations. How did they move from those situations to where they are now? They were determined to get out of that situation and move on. They decided what they wanted and then made choices to get there. Those same choices are available to you.

The power to change your life lies in the choices your make. Your choices may not be popular with those around you. But that’s okay because they aren’t going anywhere anyway. Remember, this is your life, not theirs.

Choose to be different. Go after your dreams.

Choose to break the mold. The most successful people don’t follow the status quo.

Choose to be above average. Why would you settle for anything less?

Choose wisely. Your life depends on it.

You know how you lose? It’s really simple. All you have to do is just freaking sit there and do nothing. Forever.

Do you want to win? You want to write that book, or start that podcast, or be a freaking movie star? Do you have a dream inside of you that you are hoping against hope will come true? It’s not going to happen if you just sit there and do the same things you’ve done every day of your life.

Do you want to know how to make your dreams come true? You know how you win? You start.

Freaking do something. Anything.

Momentum is the killer app, my friends.

Are you scared of failure? Who cares if you fail? At least if you try and fail (even glorious, massive, in public failure) you’re still doing more than 99% of the people you know. Probably more than 99% of people in the WORLD. And only 1% of those people have an opinion that should matter to you. That’s like your spouse if you’re married and maybe like your Mom or something.

Admittedly, there are times when even the 1% won’t get what you’re doing. And that’s okay. But really, who gives a crap about the other 99%? Why do you care what they think? They can say all the stuff they want about you. They can say you’re lazy, or fat, or stupid, or a waste of a human being all they want. But they aren’t going to pay your rent next month. They aren’t putting food on your table. You are. Until the people who are calling you names are the ones paying to keep the lights on or the water running you have no reason to listen to anything they say. Their opinion of you doesn’t matter at all. Seriously. ZERO percent. Your opinion of you matters 100%. When you allow THEIR opinion to become YOUR opinion, you’ve lost.

Most of the time, those people haven’t even said anything about you yet. You’re just scared of what they might say. You’ve said it all to yourself in your head and you’re afraid you’re going to hear it from someone else. You’re letting someone else beat you who doesn’t even know you’re alive yet. If they are going to beat you (or beat you up with their words) then man … let them know you’re alive first.

You have to be the one to do whatever it is that makes you come alive. No one is going to do that for you. You’ve got to be willing to do whatever it takes. It’s all on you.

Just start.