The Day You Woke Up

This is the day you woke up.  This is the day you realized you only have so many days left (even if it’s a lot, it’s still a finite number).  This is the day you decided the start living.

Today you realized your talent and passion and vision are too beautiful to take to the grave with you, and since you never know when you’re going to go — you better get that shit out there.  You looked around at what passes for good and what passes for great said ‘When did our standards get so low?’  You saw ‘just the way things are’ and said ‘When did I (and everyone else) agree to that?’

This is the day you looked anew at the distractions of commerce and consumerism and fear of what others think and you decided to release those hungers and instead feed your magnificent soul.  You saw yourself as what you’ve always wanted to be, not as distorted visions claimed you are.  You started loving every inch of yourself today and even if that’s a long journey, you remember this is the day you started, this was the turning point.

This is the day you gave up waiting for —

• Permission
• Prince Charming
• Your Ship to Come In

Instead you swam out to sea, inspired a pirate crew to name you their captain, and took off to claim treasures and lagoons unnumbered.

This is the day you looked around and realized the best way to support those you love is to be who you were fucking born to be — a golden god or goddess of the old stories who people felt lucky to meet, privileged to have been born in the same lifetime as.  Today you leave behind, not fear, but reluctance.  You leave behind not humility, but worthlessness.  You leave behind not a desire to do perfect work, but a desire not to show anyone imperfect work.

This is the day hard work stopped scaring you.  You started thinking of hard work as just a heavy door.  You might have to push and push, but it’s moving in the right direction and EVERYTHING you want is right on the other side.  And some people might laugh at you as you push but you cannot conceive of how they can stand in front of the door to their dreams their whole life and never try to even give it a little nudge.  And then be inspired to give it a great big one.

This is the day you woke up.  If you’d already been following the path, today inspired you to run faster.  If you’d been afraid, today reminded you — your heroes had the same fears when they started.  If you’d been cruising along, assuming someday you’ll make the big effort and really start living your life, today said —

And finally this was the day a little voice whispered inside you and every day for the rest of your life you knew that —

THIS is that day.