Have you seen the movie “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel?” If you haven’t then you should. It may not have been the blockbuster hit of all times, but it was definitely a feel good movie and has a great line that is going to kick off this blog today:
“Everything will be okay in the end, if it is not okay, then it is not the end.”
I’ve thought a lot about life over the past year and a half and I’ve come to realize that it isn’t about being fair. The strongest don’t always win. The best don’t always succeed. The hard workers sometimes get abused and the slackers sometimes get rewarded. The early bird doesn’t always get the worm and blondes don’t always have more fun. You see we spend too much time looking at the victories or the failures instead of how we got to them. Life isn’t about being fair, it’s about taking the journey. We are going to make mistakes along the way but we are also going to do so many things right. We are going to fail but we are also going to succeed with greatness. We are going to lose but when we win it is going to feel amazing. And at the end, whenever that time comes, all the success and failure and the wins and the losses aren’t going to seem as important as they once did, but the overall feeling of the journey is what will matter. Which is exactly what Sonny was saying in the movie, in the end it will all be ok. Every loss, every failure, every mistake will make you who you are and make your journey that much more meaningful.
It’s very easy for all of us to be dragged down by all the things that seem to go wrong in our lives. Heck, I am amazed as I look back that I even managed to get out of bed sometimes. I’ve had my fair share of tragedy and heartbreak just as I’m sure there is more to come. But I got up and put one foot in front of the other and I carried on. It wasn’t always easy and it won’t always be easy going forward. But the alternative is stopping, and you can’t stop along the journey. You can rest, you can take a break, but if your journey isn’t over then the best thing you can do is keep moving.
And here is where we often struggle. We tend to judge the rest of the journey based on the past. We think that we aren’t meant for success or destined to be happy. When the truth is that the journey changes every day as we move through it. We forget that the only thing standing in the way of success and happiness today is not moving forward.
Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor for lacking imagination. I think he eventually found it! Albert Einstein didn’t speak until he was 4, he didn’t read until he was 7, and was even considered mentally handicapped at school. I think he caught on somewhere between winning a Nobel Prize and changing the face of physics. Thomas Edison had 1000 failed attempts before he finally saw the light. Stephen King submitted “Carrie” thirty times and was rejected every time but with encouragement from his wife tried once more and the rest is history. Michael Jordan missed over 9000 shots in his career and 26 of them were game winning shots, but we still consider him one of the best. Babe Ruth held the home run record for a very long time, but he also held the record for the most strike outs for a while as well.
The point is that none of them gave up. They all took each day, each challenge, as a new chance at success. We don’t know how much time we are given on this journey, and for many of us it will be too short. But it will especially be too short if we spend too much time along the journey thinking we won’t achieve our dreams or ever find happiness. We have to live each moment as if the best times are yet to come and all of our dreams are still achievable. James Dean said one of my favorite quotes of all time:
“Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today.”
I know it’s a tough one to follow. I know I don’t do it all the time. But just take a minute to think about it. “Dream as if you’ll live forever.” What are all the dreams you would have for yourself – there is no dream too big or too small, there can be an unlimited number because you have all the time in the world. Maybe you want to fly a kite, or write a book, help cure a disease, or find your soul mate. The sky is truly the limit. Now the other part, “Live as if you’ll die today.” I know, it’s the hard part of the equation, but really how would today go for you if you thought it was your last day here? Maybe you would fly a kite, finally put some words on the paper, donate some money to researchers, and tell that person you’ve been getting to know that you really care about them. It’s different for everyone and it’s ever changing, and it’s hard, but it’s worth it.
If your dreams are great in number and you are living each day like it could be your last, then everything will be okay in the end. Not because you achieved every goal, or had too many victories to count, but because you faced the journey head on. You took a new step every day toward the things you want and your happiness. When the odds were stacked against you, you kept trying. When someone told you that you weren’t good enough, you tried anyway. When someone got in your way, you made a path around them. When times were too tough to carry the load alone, you asked your friends and family for help. But most of all when the journey let you down, and you took a break no matter how long it was, you stood back up, you dusted yourself off, and you were brave enough to continue on.
The Year of Crystal 3.0 