This Idea is Tough to Remember

Good morning. You've got a choice today. You've got a thousand choices today. Most don't matter, and you'll forget them in five minutes. Radio talk show or music in the car. Soda or water for lunch. Vendor A or Vendor B. Call home during lunch or wait till the afternoon. Use the bathroom now or wait 15 minutes. Go to class or don't go to class. Call a friend or have a night alone. Get your work done perfectly or do something else. Like I said, most don't matter, and you'll forget them in five minutes.

But once in a while, one of them is going to change your life. You might know it, you might not. Picking a pizza topping doesn't matter. Picking a college does. Holding a day meeting presentation at 8 AM doesn't matter. Auditioning for a seat in the London Philharmonic does. Skipping lab might not matter ... but going to lab might mean walking into the woman you marry. Would you have met her if you stayed in bed? Who knows. Chance can't be underestimated, after all.

That's the deal, then. Some choices you know matter. Is everything else chance? Could be. Might not be. Do everything right all the time and you could get hit by a car. Do everything wrong all the time and you could win the lottery. Parity is not requisite for living, but you knew that.

What about others? The people around you? They're why you got up today, didn't you? You wanted to laugh with them, talk to them, cry with them, hold them, yell at them, be angry with them, fall in love with them, be loved by them, support them, listen to them, fight for them, fight with them, forget them, remember them, be ignored by them, and just sit next to them in the car for a second before the light changes. That guy singing in the Honda ... who knows what his deal is, but he made your day during the traffic jam on 22, didn't he? Man, did he suck. But oh, did he sing with passion. Stranger or friend, enemy or parent, those people are why you got up today. And whoever they are, they're expecting something of you. Your mom wants you to be happy, be successful, be you. The guy across the hall wants your project to fail so his funding will increase. Your teacher wants you to learn- either because she wants to save her own job or because she thinks you might be something someday. The guy at the deli just wants you to order faster so he can go the hell home. Bottom line ... you've got to deliver something every day.

So what are you going to do? You're going to go in there with everything you've got. Guns blazing. Light the place up and leave nothing behind when you're done. And if that's not enough for them ... for whomever you're pouring yourself out to ... well then that's okay. It won't always work out. You might ruin the day of that guy at the deli. You might fail a test. You might be told that a relationship is over. And God knows it might hurt. Hell, it might hurt a lot. Rejection does. But above all, that's okay. Because in the end, you'll have no regrets. If you go out there, really put yourself out there and be nothing but yourself, every day, in everything you do ... then you've done all anyone can ever do. When things succeed, that's just phenomenal, isn't it? You could fly when things do that. But if it doesn't ... that's when you go find some friends, they pick you up, and tomorrow morning the sun rises again. The most important thing is that you keep going and never stop going, and who knows ... the next thing you know you might just find what you're looking for. If you even know what that is.

And if you don't find what you're looking for, I'll bet you're okay with it. I'll bet all that I have on it ... because if I choose to live this way, like you, I don't have a choice. I have to believe that you, and I, and everyone will all be okay with it.

After all- we lived, didn't we?

Damn right we did.