Life is a large bag filled with stacks upon stacks of problems. Life is a bitch and there isn’t a single person out there that can argue otherwise. No matter how well off you are in life, you will always have problems. Whether ‘Mo money, mo problems’ is accurate is arguable, but no matter how much money you have, what your social status is or how high you rank on the scale of success — you will always, always, always find some sort of problem to stress you out or piss you off.
We find ourselves riddled with issues at work, at home, in the family, and often will find ourselves battered with issues from within. There is no escaping the ever-looming possibility of sh*t popping up out of nowhere; you can find yourself between a rock and a hard place any minute of any day without warning. It’s difficult dealing with so many issues because they rarely roll solo. Luckily, you’re going to die one day.
One day you will die and you won’t have any more problems. You won’t have car payments, mortgages or debts of any sort. You won’t ever again have a bad hair day. You won’t ever get into another argument with your boyfriend or sister. You won’t make any more mistakes or find yourself in difficult situations to navigate out of. One day you will be dead.
You won’t have pregnancy scares, find yourself unemployed or struggle to pay late fees on your credit cards. Whether or not you have money won’t matter. Whether or not you are alone in the world won’t matter; nor will anything that you ever did that others gave you sh*t for. One day you will die and that will be it. Game over. No redos. If that doesn’t cheer you up, then I don’t know what will!
Just imagine…one day all the mistakes that you made, all the problems you had, all the issues and unpleasant memories…none of it will matter — because you’ll be dead. Sure, maybe there is some form of an afterlife, but even if there is, I can guarantee you the experience will be nothing like the one you are having right now, nor like any that you have had or will have before the day you kick that bucket. I love that saying: “Kick the bucket.”
We all have bucket lists — a list of things that we want to do, experiences that we wish to have and accomplishments that we want to work for. When you die, you kick that bucket. You kick it and all the dreams and hopes that you had saved up to ‘one day get to’ spill out and evaporate into nothingness. We construct this wish list of sorts over the years, collecting one wish at a time like drops of water, siphoning them into our bucket in hopes that one day we will have drank each of those drops and lived all those moments that we are dying to — literally dying to — live. The tragedy is that most of us kick those buckets while they are still overflowing at the rim.
The greatest sin that there ever was is living a life wasted. I am sure that you have heard people say that the reason they were able to succeed where others failed was that they came to the realization that they have nothing to lose. I don’t see it that way. I believe that we all have a lot to lose. In fact, we have everything to lose and more than that, we will lose it all — every last thing that holds any meaning for us. You will lose everything. All of your friends. Your family and all your experiences — all of it will one day be gone.
All of it will disappear the moment that you no longer hold life. The beauty of it is that you have no say in the matter. This is the way that it is and that is that. I find this to be the greatest of reliefs. It’s not that you don’t have anything to lose; you do have a whole lot to lose and you will lose it no matter what you do. So why not risk losing it a little sooner? Why not risk whatever it is that you need to risk in order to sip those glorious drops in that bucket?
Of course, we don’t want to risk our lives more often than we have to — in that matter, be as safe as you feel necessary. However, when it comes to anything else in your life, if you don’t take advantage of whatever opportunities come your way, then you are wasting your life. If you are not doing your very best and putting yourself out there in order to get what you want out of the short life that you have then you, my friend, are a schmuck. Starting your own business is not easy; it’s difficult.
Putting yourself out there and putting your credit history on the line is not something that most people are willing to do. The funny thing about risk is that if you don’t risk, you don’t receive. If you don’t think outside the box, but instead conform to the norms, then you are either being lazy or giving into your fears. Laziness is never a good excuse and giving into your fears makes you a pussy — excuse my French. The only thing worth fearing is death itself and even that is silly seeing as how you are fearing the inevitable. Fear is that hole in the bottom of your bucket guaranteeing that you will never live life the way that you want to.
Sit down and figure out what you want your life to be like. Figure out the person that you want to be — figuring out who you ‘are’ is only worth a penny if you have a clear understanding of who you want to be. Taking risks and loving freely is the only way to live. If you love someone then don’t wait to tell them; tell them now. Tell your parents, sisters, aunts, uncles and grandparents how much they mean to you.
Tell that man that you love him or tell that woman that you can’t live without her. Don’t waste your life fearing commitment because as long as you fear commitment, you’ll never be capable of committing. You will lose all of these people sooner or later; how can you allow yourself not to let them know how much they mean to you? It’s wrong and cruel. We will all be left with nothing when we pass and for this reason we should do our best to accumulate as many pleasant experiences now as we can. If you ever plan on loving deeply then why not allow yourself to begin loving now?
-Why be shy and why wait for an ‘opening’ that only exits in your imagination. We create our openings. We bust down walls to make doors and create opportunities for ourselves. Unless, of course, you are one of those poor bastards under the illusion that once you die, you will be able to do all the things in that bucket list and/or that the problems you are have in life will continue to haunt you afterwards. If you are one of these people then all I can say is this: the last feeling that you will have before you breathe your last breath will be hatred and loathing for yourself and for how stupid you were for allowing yourself to waste the rarest treasure in the universe.
