That’s it. That’s the whole goddamn story, the beginning and the end of it all. It’s not a choice between being happy and being sad. Happiness is a sucker’s game, a warm, fuzzy feeling they sell you between car commercials. No. The real choice, the only one that matters, is this:
The pain of the fire, or the pain of the rust.
And the pain of the rust, Christ, that’s a special kind of hell. It’s a quiet, dull, and creeping thing. It’s the pain of waking up one morning, and the days, the months, the years, they’ve all just bled into one long, gray, miserable smear, and you realize you are standing in the exact same goddamn spot where you started.
It’s the movie Groundhog Day, but without the jokes. It’s a quiet, personal, and completely horrifying loop of your own failures. You’ve put no effort into yourself, no real, honest-to-God, down-in-the-dirt effort. And what do you have to show for your one, short, stupid, beautiful life?
Your excuses.
That’s who you are now. You’re not a man; you’re a walking, talking, breathing collection of all the reasons why you couldn’t. Your excuses are the wallpaper in your cage. They are the epitaph that will be carved on your goddamn tombstone. You are all the potential you pissed away, a beautiful, un-cashed check from a god who’s long since closed the account.
And I’m going to tell you something, and I want you to let it burn a hole right through that thick, comfortable skull of yours. The chances of you being here, of you being alive, of you being this specific, ugly, beautiful, fucked-up collection of atoms, are one in forty-three trillion.
One. In forty-three. Trillion.
You didn’t just win the lottery. You won the goddamn lottery of existence. You were the one sperm that made it, the one lucky bastard who got handed the keys to the whole goddamn show.
And what do you do with it? You sit around and you waste it. You let it rot in your pocket. It’s the same as winning a billion dollars and then starving to death in a room full of cash because you’ve convinced yourself you’re not worthy of a goddamn sandwich. It’s a quiet, ugly, and completely insane act of self-hatred, and you call it “being responsible.”
Life is the money. It’s the winnings. And you are free to spend it however the hell you want. You are free to go out and do whatever you want in this world. You are free to unlock your potential, your talents, your success. You don’t have to sit at home and marinate in your own quiet self-hatred.
Because you can choose.
You can choose the pain of the fire over the pain of the rust. The pain of the fire, that’s the pain of growth. It’s the pain of tearing a muscle so it can grow back stronger. It’s the pain of walking away from a life that’s killing you, even if it’s the only life you’ve ever known. It’s the pain of being alone, of being misunderstood, of being called a fool by all the comfortable, happy, and completely dead people in the world. It’s a sharp, honest, and beautiful pain. It’s the pain that reminds you that you’re still alive.
And the pain of the rust? That’s the quiet, cold, and completely passionless pain of the morgue.
So I’m asking you. I’m begging you. Look at your life. Look at the cage you’ve built for yourself out of your own fear. Look at the quiet, comfortable, and completely soul-crushing routine of your own slow death.
And then ask yourself one last question.
Which pain are you going to choose?
Because you’re going to have to choose one.
