Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - Wake Up and Rebuild Your Life in 2025 | Morning Motivational Speech

Episode Date: January 6, 2025

  The most profound joys in life are often the simplest, yet we tend to overlook them. The rolling hills of childhood—where freedom meant running until dusk—remain a poignant reminder of that simplicity. Today, we’ve buried those joys beneath layers of expectations, complexity, and the relentless chase for validation, building a world that’s not entirely our own. But here’s the truth: those foundational joys never left us. They’re still beneath our feet, waiting to be rediscovered. This episode invites you to strip away the noise, revisit what truly matters, and embrace the beauty in what’s simple yet profound. Because life’s deepest treasures aren’t on distant horizons—they’re right here, closer than we think. Monday Motivation Newsletter: https://www.eddiepinero.com/newsletter Free Ebook: www.eddiepinero.com/ebook  YouTube: www.eddiepinero.com/youtube 

Behind our house, there were rolling hills, as far as the eye could see. And we would run them, we would run up and down until the sun disappeared over the horizon, and we couldn't see our hands in front of our faces. In a sense, it bothers me that 25 years later, I even have to ask why something so simple, and elementary, could be fun. How something so out in the open could be profound, something so basic. Oh, how we've flipped the script. Now, today I build and scratch and claw and fight and chase and seek and climb. But my soul just wants the hill. And you might hear that and think, well, how tragic to live in that

gap to exist without that which you so deeply desire. But let me reframe the scene. I never gave up the hills, and neither did you. They're there. Covered in complexity, deemed at some point to be just a little too simple, little too elementary, so we built on top of them. We laid a foundation of external, expectations.

We erected structures that would bring us validation. In other words, we built someone else's world on top of our own called it a day. And as when one of my favorite sayings, two things can be true at once.

Moving into the world means responsibility. It means more complexity. But it doesn't negate the fact that the precious things are the simple things. And while we often spend our days fixated on distant horizons, looking for those things, I continuously find that they're often under our very feet.

The ground we walk on. It might be more conventional to look back on those moments as childish. As kids doing what kids do, but I see it as more. In fact, I see it as the essence of life. The reason we're here, it need not be abandoned. And when you close your eyes, I wonder what that looks like for you now. The air cycling through your lungs, a smile on your face, your hair blown back by the wind. What is that moment?

See, because when that's yours, you ignite. And if you think that's selfish, I have news for you, you pass that light right on to those around you. It comes through in the world you build and the structures you. make when you find those hills again you give meaning to the meaningless it's paint on the canvas it's a melody to the song and to say oh I don't have time for that it's like saying I'll breathe later while your head is being held underwater no it is the oxygen you need we get one chance to do this one ride here and your gift Need be presented to the world your heart should race just like it did when the setting sun was calling you in

And nothing else mattered in the world The entire universe is rooting for you to find those hills again You have everything you are everything you need I just hope you'll summon the courage to grab it and And hold on. It's a scene from a movie called Dead Poets Society. And this quote just really hit me, hit home. And to kind of explain this scene, basically, Robin Williams is a teacher.

He's teaching poetry and I think it's a boarding school. And there's a bunch of kids around him and he's explaining to them. You know, these are kids with ambitions. They want to be lawyers and doctors and businessmen. And he's saying, I get that. right? But here's why poetry matters. And so it becomes a metaphor for life, essentially. So what he says is, to quote from Whitman, O me, O life, of the questions of these recurring, of the endless trains, of the faithless, of cities filled with the foolish, what good amid these, oh me, oh life? And the answer is,

that you're here, that life exists, an identity, that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. In other words, with all the negativity, all the ups and downs, all the quote-unquote, you know, terrible aspects of life, all the challenges, what good, why are we here, what's the point? And it's that it's gone on for millions of years before us, gone for millions of years after us, like a play that we can contribute one verse

and the power in that, right? Just waking up and understanding that we have the ability to create our own history, our own little universe, to change the way things. are, to leave our mark, you know, and so he's talking about, I mentioned the kids huddled around him, he's like, you want to be businessmen and lawyers and engineers and doctors, and that's, it's incredible. It's a noble pursuit. We need those things to sustain life. The reason poetry is important. Reason things like love and passion and beauty are important. It's because

Because those are the things that we live life for. They are the pinnacle of what it is to be human. And every day you can decide what to do with that. You can delve into it to change, to grow yourself and in essence improve the world around you. You can play a part in something much bigger than you. And it doesn't have to be this grandiose. thing. It's using what you have where you are and the impact you can make is infinite.

Never forget that enormous things are just the culmination of small things. Little decisions. Because for those of you thinking, well, I'm just one person. You know, what difference does it make? And what, why would my verse matter and the, you know, the grand scheme? of things the great play of life. Well, I have a follow-up for you. I thought this was beautiful too. You say you're not special because the world doesn't know about you,

but that's an insult to me. I know about you. Right? Everyone touches someone. And the ability to impact those in your immediate circle it just can't be understated. Right. Sometimes I worry that we don't value ourselves and our ability to be an agent for change the way that we should. You know, every single person watching this can change themselves, can grow.

And I'm not talking about, you know, who you are. I'm talking about moving towards your greatness. So back to the main theme, right. in this play of life, what is your role, what is your verse going to say? Because it matters. It matters more than you know. It matters to you because it's an opportunity. And it's a chance to live every day to the fullest, to embark upon, you know, the important things in life, the elements of being human that really matter.

Passion, purpose, enjoying what's around you, growing, learning, and in essence, helping others do the same. When you delve into your greatness, it changes the world. Jack Welch has said, control your own destiny or someone else will. And I'm passing this along today as I believe it's one of the most important things to understand. Not a once and done thing, but a reoccurring question. Where have I relinquished control? How can I recapture what matters most? As the world around us shifts, slips, and slides, so does our grasp on it, which is why I find this continuous self-reflection so powerful. I have a flight this afternoon, which means I have a hard deadline, and a lot I need to do before I head down to the Miami airport. I've been traveling a lot recently, which means I've been finding myself in this situation a lot recently.

and here's what's become abundantly clear to me as I work through the logistics. On travel days, I'm exponentially more productive than on my typical, quote-unquote, workday. I wake up with an urgency and sense of control over my time that apparently is lacking on, say, your typical Tuesday. And I'm shot out of a canon. Today, for example, I've worked out, written and recorded two speeches. counting this one, recorded short video content sent to my editors, planned next week's topics, might even have time to go live and hang out for a few minutes. And I'm sitting here thinking, you know, dude, if I had a flight at noon every day,

I'd be worth $500 million by June. What is the difference between today and every other day? Simple. My approach towards it. How I utilize and control the resources at my disposal. This is a powerful, powerful thing to realize. You know, it begs the question, how can this urgency be manufactured? Because that's what it's about, right?

Setting up the parameters so that they are most conducive to our success. Another life-changing quote I came across a few years ago was you are your own experiment. Meaning life is about testing things, trying different methods, exploring different approaches, and also having the discipline to observe their outcomes. Why? So that you can use that information to position yourself for success. That info is as good as gold. One understanding and two, implementing. So that we're not pushed back and forth by external factors like leaves in the wind,

but are instead creating our own ideal circumstances. These, let's just call them, travel days have helped me realize how much power, energy, control, I relinquish on a typical day. And most importantly, how I can change that. Time for a new experiment. Let's try approaching every day like there's a hard cut off at noon. How? I'm not sure yet. I'll test and explore until something clicks.

But there's definitely some information worth noting. I've picked up my phone zero times today, which is obviously valuable. I've second-guessed my messaging and communication a lot less. Don't have time to waste on the small things, Nope, not when you fly out at noon. This is information I'll take with me. Little nuggets of wisdom that I've been able to collect. And so I'll finish with an important reminder that this is not so much about efficiency

as it is about awareness and a willingness to adapt. Like becoming a robot is not the goal here, but the discipline to step outside yourself and look at how you're spending your time so that you can make it more valuable and meaningful is. We let the outside world dictate far too much, and we don't even realize. We just sort of move through it. We relinquished control because we had no idea it was ours to take. We are very often unaware of the power that we have over ourselves, our circumstances, and our lives in totality. We're unaware of just how much value we walk right by.

The opportunity is not days, weeks, or months away. It lives with you now. Every breath, every step, every decision, you just have to open your eyes and invite it in. Why is it that when we look back on our lives, it's never the easy days or the simplicity? It's not the calm that changes our reality or makes us who we are. Don't get me wrong, calm and simplicity. They're wonderful. not transformative and why would they be? Why would we change or seek to obtain more without

a reason or incentive? It's times of struggle, of turbulence. It's when life was hard that we had to rethink who we are. Reshape the way we look at the world. Because without chaos, you don't get calm. Without the storm, you don't get those crazy neon colors and gold. and raise it leaves as it passes by. In order to triumph in any capacity or any area of life, there's always a sacrifice that must be made. The adversity is the fire that forges the iron. There's a saying hard times create strong men.

Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men and weak men create hard times. a cycle. And this is generally used in a sociopolitical sense, and I think in a lot of ways it applies today, but where I've really found it useful, where I've found value in it is at the personal level. Because what I've noticed is that growth also appears to have a cyclical nature. And when we're in a rough situation or overcoming an obstacle, we have to push, we fight, we grow, sometimes without even realizing it, we achieve a result, and by default, this transformation that in one way or another makes us something new. But then it becomes easy to level out, right? And that's the challenge. It creates this period of stagnation.

It's like we made the jump, and it becomes real easy to stay there. And that's why I have found value in when life is not providing resistance to manufacture some. Because that's the only way to grow. Progress is happiness. Victor Frankel and Man's Search for Meaning, you know, he says purpose is to find from struggle. If things are too calm or simple or quiet, life begins to lack meaning and that's never a spot we want to be. Life is about the pursuit of something. You just have to figure out what that blank will be. You get to decide which mountain to climb. There's a story about a butterfly making its way out of a cocoon.

And it makes a little hole. makes a little hole. It starts attempting to push its way out. Someone walks by, they see it struggling, and open the cocoon up to help the butterfly out, right, thinking that they did this great deed. But in doing so, that butterfly has now lost its ability to use its wings to fly. Why? Because the strength that was necessary to fly would have been forged when he fought his way out. The butterfly was deprived of the very thing it needed. to become something more. And that's the point.

It's easy to get lost in the now and seek to eliminate everything that doesn't make the moment more comfortable to remove that which doesn't make things easier. But whether we're talking about collectively or the complacency in our individual lives, we have to remember that avoiding discomfort isn't the answer.

When your biggest problem is Amazon, taking five days to deliver, or that your feelings are hurt by someone's comment, or opinions on social media, you've lost track of yourself. You may be living in a world lacking the resistance necessary for growth. Maybe it's time to ask what matters.

And I remember when I lived in Boston, I'd walk around listening to podcast downtown, and I'll never forget here in Ryan Holiday differentiating between passion and purpose. He called passion temporary, a dopamine hit. It's the excitement before the project begins. the beginning of a journey, the honeymoon phase.

But passion alone falls short. And it falls short because anything worthwhile is hard. It tests us. It repeatedly presents us with those metaphorical cocoons we have to fight. We have to earn our stripes, grow our wings. And if we stop at passion, there's no reason to battle on. to take the punches, knowing that they will create for us a tomorrow full of infinite possibility, and that's where we need purpose.

That's why it matters. We need something bigger to march towards. A destination that's meaningful. To remind us that those challenging times, they're not a burden. There is no poor me here. They're the fire that sharpens us. That whispers to us not only the importance of carrying on but the power contained within ourselves to do so.

This world, it is not stacked against you. It's never the problem or the obstacle. No, it's the opportunity laid out at your feet. And it's in those very times, when we're uncomfortable, when we're unsure, when we don't know where to draw our strength, that we need to remember it comes within. It's an idea that is brought to life through courage, through understanding, through the trials and tribulations of life that didn't intimidate or hold you back, knowing that Life has given you everything you need to blaze your trail.

So don't be afraid to let it take you somewhere new. Hi, I'm Chris Gatford, and I'm very excited to tell you about beautiful anonymous, a podcast where I talk to random people on the phone. I tweet out a phone number, thousands of people try to call, you talk to one of them, they stay anonymous, I can't hang up, that's all the rules. I never know what's going to happen. We get serious ones. I've talked with meth dealers on their way to prison.

I've talked to people who survive mass shootings, Crazy funny ones. I talk to a guy with a goose laugh, somebody who dresses up as a pirate on the weekends. I never know what's going to happen. It's a great show. Subscribe today, Beautiful Anonymous. It's when we most want to turn around that we must keep going. When all we see is darkness, that we must have faith in the light,

it's when we feel most vulnerable, that we must become unshakable. See, there's a misconception. That strength implies a total absence of weakness or doubt that courage means never feeling fear or uncertainty. When in reality, these things are human. They've been wired into us. As Ernest Becker has said, we are simultaneously worms and gods. Worms in that, sure, we're animals. Flesh and bone, unable to avoid death or misfortune or tragedy in life.

But most importantly, God's, in that we have the divine ability to transcend these inevitable circumstances, to find hope in this seemingly hopeless, to see opportunity in life's obstacles and growth when we fall, to take the meaningless and give it meaning. And one of the most important things I've learned is that when life knocks me down, pushes me to my limits, it's not some indication that I walked the wrong path. It's no referendum on who I am. No, it's a hand-extended offering the chance for me to be more than I've ever been. And in a world of delusion and distraction,

it's a reminder that we have the capacity to turn life's hardship into a better tomorrow. The difference between facts or fiction, possible or impossible success or failure, is the decision to get up when life knocks us down. This world, it's not easy. It tests us, challenges us. It makes us think we are but a cog in the wheel of life. It can be tough. But your weapon, your strength is knowing that you...

are tougher. And look, I know that adversity hurts, but I also know that you're capable. You are strong enough to turn that struggle into something meaningful. Where most would turn back, you have it in you to take one step forward. Let the walls crash down. The skies open up and the ground shake. See, this is minor detail in your world. Transcend. transcend the average, the earthly constraints and the mental limitation. Remember who you are. Why you started. Remember that when your surroundings attempt to pull you back down to Earth, you have no interest in the narratives they offer to you. You are unshakable.

There's a quote attributed to Seneca that states, no man is more unhappy than he who never faces adversity, for he is not permitted to prove himself. Meaning it's in pursuing the difficult thing that we obtain meaning, recognition that we prove ourselves, but prove ourselves to whom. This is the same Seneca who famously stated that we suffer more in imagination than we do in reality, that he is most of the same Seneca powerful who has power over himself. And that's one of the beautiful things about stoicism. It makes us ask a very simple but often overlooked question,

who's really the adversary here? Who's the opposition we're dealing with as we fight our battles? What is it that must be transformed? Is it the outside world? Or the way our eyes view the outside world? What's really holding us back? The circumstances? Or our own personal thoughts about the circumstances.

And I think this is where we misunderstand the challenges before us. I want to delve into this power of perspective to explain that we are the gatekeepers between ourselves and our ideal lives. And very often we do a good job. of ensuring that gate stays closed. We sabotage our own goals, our own dreams, our own happiness, while simultaneously pointing the finger at a million externalities. See, when we look at the difficulties of life,

and there's no doubt that life can be a very difficult thing, it's easy to look at the world as this binary playing field, me versus the world. And in fact, we often visualize the world, world as the enemy pushing back against us, as if its motives were counter to ours. So many of these narratives, these stories, they actually say nothing about the outside world. And when we look deeper, it becomes apparent that they actually say a whole lot more about us. It's the one viewing that gets to decipher what the circumstance means.

And so all narratives are reflections of the observers. Jim Rohn used to tell a story about two brothers who had an alcoholic father. He'd come home drunk, he'd abuse his sons. They had a terrible childhood. And as they each grew up and had families of their own, their paths kind of diverged. Right? One became abusive and the other was kind and loving and caring. And when confronted, the now abusive brother stated, well, look, how can you blame me? Don't you see how I was raised?

But the kind, loving, and caring brother stated, of course I'm like this. I could never put my family through what I went through as a child. Same circumstances, different lenses, interpretations, which means different real world result. And the idea here is to emphasize how one of the most important abilities a human being possesses is the ability to interpret the world around him. I think of us as subjects navigating a world of objects, as though the things around us don't have meaning until we place meaning upon them. That's what humans do. create narratives out of objects.

And that often overlooked, seemingly insignificant ability, places a lot of power in our hands. Very rarely is it what we see, it's what we think, and what we do about what we see. You ever hang out with people that just tend to be happy, upbeat, positive energy. I have a very good friend like that where his first inclination

is always to find the positive. In moments where I've sort of trained myself to pause, take a second, sift through the emotion, uncover the value in a tough situation, refocus, and take a strategic step forward. I look over at him and he's already arrived there. He's been there for three minutes, right? Eliminated the negativity. It's his first

instinct. He's the metaphorical kid hopping around in puddles, whistling at the top of his lungs, while everyone else is hiding out from the rain, or at least trying to find the courage to run out onto the street with. Then there are people who seem to always find the negative. It doesn't really matter what this situation is. Happiness is fleeting, only to reveal the negativity that never seems to go away, right? The kind of person that if they won the lottery, their first thought might be, Oh no, but what if I lose it all? Both examples are people projecting themselves onto the world around them. The same way that smoke covers and consumes an entire room.

It's not the room that's the culprit. Here's another example from Jim Rohn, since we're on a Jim Rone kick. He's making a similar point, and this is all from a collection of speeches. He has on Audible, comparing humans to oranges, which is probably not a comparison you've made recently. but he said there's consistency to an orange and that it can be filled with one thing. When you squeeze an orange, orange juice is coming out.

Period. It will never be apple juice or grape food juice. It will only emit what it has inside, which is orange juice. And while here's the connection. When life pressures us, challenges us, or maybe. metaphorically squeezes us, we only emit the emotions that are contained and available, that are alive and well within us. If there is no jealousy contained in our thinking, we're not going to project jealousy out into the world. If there is no hatred within us, we will not project hatred onto others.

Why is that powerful? It's powerful. Because, again, it's one of the most important things you can do. Certainly one of the most important things I've learned to do is take that finger pointing blame at the outside world, slowly turn it around and point it back at myself and ask what thoughts, what emotions, what ideas am I letting live inside my head that's altering the narrative, the story I'm telling about myself and the world that I live in. And while one might think, well, that's uncomfortable, That's unfair, a little extreme. Why should I point at myself?

It's not my fault. I would challenge you, at least for the sake of the next few minutes, to see such a change as empowering, as your advantage, as the bridge from where you are to where you want to be. See, if you always have feelings of, let's say, jealousy around a particular person, that feeling in your stomach, like, oh, they have it all. They're ahead. They live how I want to.

live. They're this and that and I kind of hate them for it. You're naively giving the external world the power. You're saying, I feel the way I do because of that out there. Some cosmic injustice. You are powerless because you're neglecting your personal agency as a factor. But when you turn that finger around and say, I only feel this way because I'm allowing myself to, then you can ask the question. So many never think to ask. Why? Why do I feel this way? Which lights a path to how can I fix it? See, the key to a better life is realizing you don't have to be in the passenger seat pointing at and blaming the driver, complaining about the road being taken. No, you can get into the driver's seat. You can take the wheel. You can take control.

inherit responsibility. And there's more at stake, there's greater vulnerability. But the upside is unfathomable. And I find myself thinking all the time, man, people are blaming the wrong things. They're shifting blame to the wrong adversaries. The real villain here is not the driver or the road or the weather. The real villain is the voice in your head. pleading with you not to take the wheel.

Pleading with you to ride shotgun and complain as the world passes you by. And of course it makes sense to qualify that. With the inevitability that there are some things placed upon us that are just bigger than us, that we can't control. And you can make a list however long you want to, natural disasters, decisions, and actions of others, health problems. We don't often get to choose the land. So as the Stoics would say, understand that.

Understand what you can't control and what you can. Because the beauty is that you can control how you navigate that landscape, and that is power. That is what makes the difference. See the two brothers, I mentioned a few moments earlier, same landscape. Different navigational tactics. Different view of what it all meant. One took the wheel and one did not. So that's Seneca quote.

That states, No man is more unhappy than he who never faces adversity. For he is not permitted to prove himself. Well, it's perfectly clear, as far as I'm concerned, the question is not whether or not to face adversity. I think we all understand that. What I hope we take from today is a better understanding of what the true adversity is. A better understanding of the fact that in front of us there is always an answer, a key to every lock.

Some people just don't think to look. They're so busy peering around every corner for external enemies and scapegoats that they don't give themselves permission to succeed. Maybe unfortunate, but it's true. You can hit the bullseye over and over again. But if it's the wrong target, it won't do much for you. You might as well have missed by 50 feet. And I think that is what we overlook. You can't always fix the outside world.

You can't change the unchangeable, but you can always change yourself. You can always fix you. As Tolstoy said, everyone wants to change the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. You're capable of being both your greatest adversary and ally. So choose wisely. Because the world around you will do nothing more than respond accordingly to your decision. It may be that our greatest gift in life is that we're always one decision away from transformation.

We're always one decision away from a new path. with new experiences, new beliefs, new identity, one decision away from a totally different life. It's almost incomprehensible. That all the days leading up to now, everything we knew ourselves to be can be discarded and left with one swing of an axe gone. What is more miraculous than that? We live at the intersection of two imaginary worlds, right? The past and the future. Past is gone and essentially meaningless. Yet as the provider of our identity, it still rules over us.

Our sense of who we are comes from our collection of past memories. That imaginary world of yesterday, like the elephant tied to the chair with a rope. It hasn't realized it's strong enough to break free. It doesn't know that what confines him is not the rope, but acceptance of a lie. And that's what the past, that's what identity is, a lie. We are not yesterday, we are right now. And from the trivial things to the significant things, we get wrapped up in that lie.

We overlook the gift of control we have over our future. What does it mean to say, I'm not a mourning person? That in your past you hadn't conditioned yourself to wake up early? Okay. What does it mean to say, oh, I let people walk all over me? that in your past you didn't stand up for yourself? What does it mean to say I'm awkward or shy or I struggle with writing or running or public speaking? So maybe you did.

But what does that have to do with right now? What does that have to do with realizing the control you have over your life? Because simply realizing you can disconnect from these narratives that they are not you is the superpower. Realizing that calling yourself a bad student, a bad student because you failed a test. It's like never taking off your rain coat because it rained yesterday. It's like, no, the sun is out, adapt. And once you realize right now is the beginning of the rest of your life,

you can start making little changes. Identify not who you were, but who you'd love to be and move towards it. Read the power of habit and atomic habit so that you can understand change isn't crazy or big or scary. scary. It's moving little things in your life around so that they work for you, not against you. Start waking up and thinking about not what has happened, but what can happen, not what can go wrong, but what can go right. You are always one decision away from a totally different life

because you're always one decision away from change, from walking away from the narratives that you have accepted. And so remember that. But remember it not just when things are fine. Remember it when you're struggling, when you feel restless or uneasy, unsure, uninspired, sad, angry, not content with the reflection in the mirror. When you feel that negativity, you're not looking at what can be, you're looking at what you have been. And there's no room at the table for that distraction. Not when you can reach out and start building something new.

When you can put on a new pair of shoes and walk down a different path, you are always one decision away from a totally different life. And that decision should be first and foremost to choose future over past. Your next step over the last one, choose your ideal world and start building. on that ledge, staring out at what we know we need to do, at the moment we least want to do it, well that's where the future is shaped. When procrastination feels like the answer or avoidance the optimal choice, where does one draw their strength?

They say routine is a powerful tool in this fight. And I believe that when something becomes habit or part of the process. instilled in the day-to-day, there's just simply less room for negotiation. We show up with our eyes on the prize. But here's the thing, we are human. There's simply going to be days when the world pushes back. Life is a game of complexity. It's unpredictable.

You want to talk about the good days, fine. It's easy to show up when we're feeling good. And thankfully, those days outnumber the others, right? Creating the bulk of our consistency, 10,000 hours. But not all of them. I mean, life is about momentum. Myself, after coming off a pretty terrible weekend for a variety of reasons, I found myself on that ledge again.

When the alternative route made itself known, where it felt mighty tempting to call it off, take a break where my worldview had come into question. I had to ask myself, who are you? Really? It's easy to rationalize walking away in these moments. In his book The War of Art, Stephen Presfield says,

our job in life is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it. Well, who would have known how much goes into that process of becoming? How committed we have to be to the road before us, and not only when it's sunny, but when the skies are dark and gray. And how if we allow ourselves in those difficult moments to say,

sometimes it's okay to wave the white flag. It's okay to walk away. Then you leave the door cracked to make that same decision at any other point in time. Right. Quitting, conceding can very easily become a habit and a habit we want to avoid at all cost. Right? I have this little rule that no matter what, I can never leave dishes in the sink overnight. Never.

I treat this, you know, arbitrary little prompt. little promise to myself, like it's life or death. Which, again, random, but hear me out. It's half practical, half symbolic. I know that if I say, okay, just this once, I've effectively removed the barrier separating order from chaos. If it's okay just this once, then it's okay 1,000 times. And a messy sink becomes a messy kitchen, becomes a messy house,

becomes a cluttered mind. Extreme, maybe. But critical. Here is where the symbolism comes in. I understand how fragile that divide. How when I'm tired or have a headache or I'm busy, it's still priority. Because I want to hammer my subconscious

with the understanding that I show up when it's inconvenient. That very moment when I could easily trick myself, into thinking it's small or dumb or arbitrary, it's a sink, who cares? Right? That's the moment that I need to bleed into the rest of my life. And I think that's exactly it, right? The floodwaters are always looking to come in. And how many cracks until the room gives way?

You know, when you've had a few rough days, when you've lost something important to you, when you're sad or disappointed about an outcome, what then? When life calls you to exceed expectations, what then? Because the world around you will always give you evidence, support dialing it back, right? Selling yourself short, if that's the case you're looking to make.

But here's the deal. Should you choose the inverse, you are strong enough to be better than you've ever been in those challenging moments. You can show up when it hurts. You can reestablish your why, carry forward even after the turbulence of yesterday. Life will never be easy. It will never all make sense. And this understanding has helped me to roll up my sleeves and continue forward. When I'm disappointed with yesterday or overwhelmed by the conditions or landscape of the moment, when I question how much

I have left. But I've found that when I look hard enough, there's always something to draw. And that's the message of note. That's what we must show ourselves. When you're on that ledge, this can be where you're at your best. This is where you get to uncover just how deep rooted your greatness is. This is where you set the standard and the pace for everything to come. Sometimes 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, I was working on the admissions essay, I was

brainstorming with my grandmother, talking over her possible topics and approaches. You read me this quote that's sometimes 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 bow lines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sales, explore, dream, discover. I thought this was the perfect bridge to the next chapter in 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 breadth of life

because we're focusing on the dotted line before us, the one we're supposed to walk. Sometimes 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, dream. 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, sometimes you get sent to your room. And 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. Sometimes, though, the path leads us in the opposite direction. Far away to distant world, 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 to 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'd think you'd,

You could start that routine that will get you in the physical shape you've always dreamed of. See, 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. And what's incredible, truly incredible, is 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, something along the lines of dear self, 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 actions, 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, those 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, 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 bow lines. Sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails, explore, dream, discover. Explore, but for you, wander down those paths that have for so long piqued 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 Thoreau 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. And 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.