Let’s just start there. Let’s carve that into the cheap wood of the bar right now. You. Are. Losing. Out.
You’re sitting there, in your quiet, comfortable, and completely soul-crushing little cage, and you’re moping. You’re telling yourself stories. Sad, pathetic little stories about how the world is a cold, hard place and you’re just a victim of circumstance. You’re miserable, and you wear that misery like a goddamn badge of honor, like it makes you deep, like it makes you interesting.
It doesn’t. It just makes you a bore.
And what are you losing out on? Life. The whole goddamn, beautiful, ugly, magnificent, and completely fucked-up show. It’s happening right now, outside your window, in the street, in the next town over, on the other side of the goddamn planet. And you’re just sitting there, a tourist in your own life, watching it all go by on a little screen.
Why?
Because you’re afraid.
You’re too afraid to take a goddamn chance. You’re worried about what might happen. What if it works out? What if it doesn’t? What if they reject you? What if you fail?
They sell you these sweet, comfortable lies to keep you in your cage. They tell you, “What is meant for you will never miss you.” What a load of horseshit. The world doesn’t owe you a goddamn thing. Destiny is a word for people who are too scared to make a choice. Nothing is “meant” for you. You have to go out into the street and take it. You have to fight for it, bleed for it, and maybe, just maybe, if you’re lucky, you get to hold onto it for a little while before some other bastard comes along and tries to take it from you.
They tell you, “What leaves was a lesson.” Another beautiful lie. What leaves is gone. It doesn’t leave a lesson; it leaves a scar. A big, ugly, gaping wound that you have to learn to live with.
The only truth they ever stumbled upon is this: You’ll miss one hundred percent of the shots you don’t take.
Life only happens once. This isn’t a goddamn dress rehearsal. The curtain is up, the lights are on, and you’re standing center stage with your dick in your hand, afraid to say your lines. So take a fucking chance. On something. On someone. On your own goddamn self.
Who cares what happens? Who cares if you fail? Who cares if you make a fool of yourself? This only happens once. This is it. The whole show. And you’re spending it moping around in the dark, wondering what it would be like to feel the heat of the goddamn stage lights.
And don’t give me that bullshit about channeling more love into the planet. This isn’t about the planet. This is about you. This is about your one, small, pathetic, and beautiful little life. It’s about fighting for one real, honest-to-God moment before the lights go out for good.
You want to know what it really means to take a chance? The old man already told us. He laid out the whole goddamn battle plan.
“If you’re going to try, go all the way.
Otherwise, don’t even start.”
That’s not a cute, inspirational quote for your goddamn coffee mug. That’s a death sentence. That’s a promise of beautiful, ugly, and complete annihilation.
It could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives. And maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days, the hunger a clean, sharp, honest feeling in a world full of dull, phony satisfactions. It could mean freezing on a park bench, the cold a brutal reminder that you are alive. It could mean jail. It could mean the world looking at you and laughing, calling you a fool, a madman.
Isolation.
And that, right there, that isolation, that’s the gift.
All the other shit, the hunger, the cold, the laughter of the crowd, that’s just a test of your endurance. A test of how much you really want it. And you’ll do it, despite the rejection, despite the worst goddamn odds.
And it will be better than anything else you can imagine.
If you’re going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.
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.
Are you going to go all the way?
Or are you just another goddamn tourist, another coward who’s going to die in a warm bed, wondering what it would have been like to have lived?
