A Few Words of Encouragement (Or Lies I Should Have Convinced Myself Were True When I Started)

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There is no one in the world like you. No one can make what you make. Though you may struggle and want to give up, you shouldn't. The only way past a hurdle is over it. Get up and jump.

You make your own way. The world does its own thing. Don't worry about it. What I mean is, don't pay any attention to what the world does. It doesn't concern you. You concern you. What you do all the time is what is important.

You are capable of anything, except what you won't try, or what you give up on. Try everything. Don't give up. Forge ahead as far as you can, then go a little further. You will be amazed at your ability to sustain and strengthen your resolve.

When its getting dark, light a torch. If you don't have a torch, light a candle. If you don't have a candle light a match. The light will guide you, but you have to shine the light. You have to be the one reaching out your arm with the light at the end of your fingertips, searching in the darkness for the path.

The road will rise up to meet you. You are on your own journey. You can't make a wrong turn. Just as it is impossible to get lost anymore, it is impossible to get lost anymore.

You already know the way to go. You already know where you want to be heading. Head in that direction. Become the person that you want to be.

There are no better ways to do what you are doing, because no one else is doing what you are doing. Don't search for a better way, just keep doing what you are doing. Just keeping making stuff and putting it out there.

There are no wrong answers, because there are no questions.

The only question that you have to ask yourself is... nothing. Don't ask questions of yourself, provide statements of fact. Get lost in the obvious.

Your audience is too big. Don't write for everyone. Write for one person. Write for one person, all the time. You can change the person you write for at any given time, but don't try to write for more than one person at a time. The audience is only ever one person at a time anyway.

There is no great time to blow up on the scene and infiltrate the world. There is only now. There will only ever be now. Allow now to be,  and be yourself now.

This is too cryptic, too vague. What I mean to say is, be yourself. You try so hard to be the person you think you should be, the person you think other people will like and react to. Just be yourself. Hang the rest out to dry.

What does it mean to be true to yourself? I feel like I want to say that, that you should be true to yourself, "to thine own self be true", but I think what I really want to say is.... Be yourself. Be who you are, foibles and problems and nonsense and all. Just let yourself be.

And when you let yourself be, share yourself. Others want to see people who are themselves, because that is who we all want to be. We don't want to be another person, we want to be most truly and fully ourselves. We want to be free to be ourselves all the time.

Keep creating. You may never ever get it right, but you need to keep doing it. What is right anyway? The rightest thing you can ever do at any time is to make something that is reflective of where you are in life.

Follow your dreams.

"Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake."
Henry David Thoreau

More than follow your dreams, live your dreams. Don't be like, "I can't live my dreams." Yes you fucking can. Just do it. Make your greatest dreams come true every minute of every day.

What do you want from life? Create it.

You can make anything. So make it already.

The best thing you can do is do.

You will give up before you even start. Know this about yourself, and then refuse to give up. Learn from your mistakes. Your mistakes are not the end. Learn from them and grow.

You are a beautiful person. It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. Stop comparing yourself to others. Others don't matter. You do. You matter.

And because you matter, what you make matters, so keep making it, through the hard times and the good.

Don't create for others, create for yourself. You are why you got into this business in the first place. Make yourself happy, not others. Lead by following your own example.


Stop thinking about everyone else.

Stop thinking about everyone else.

You are creating because you can connect yourself to another person through writing, but you can't connect yourself to everyone at the same time. There is no mind meld when it comes to reading and writing. Everyone is affected uniquely as they experience writing and what is written. Leave your baggage out of it.

If you derail, don't worry.

You'll get back on track.

Keep making somethings. Keep trying. Stay with it. Stick to it. Make it happen. If you don't, no one else will.

You don't have time to stop making things. You don't have time to second guess yourself.

If I told you twenty years ago you would be where you are now, you wouldn't believe me, that's why you don't know where you'll be twenty years from now, because you wouldn't believe it anyway.

It's okay to not know the answer.

Make something of your life. No one else will.

Might as well live the dreams you have already.

No matter your best intentions, things don't turn out like you expect. That's not positive or negative, it's just a fact, Jack. So roll with it. Expect the unexpected: you'll be surprised anyway.

If you give yourself enough time, you'll talk yourself out of everything. Don't talk yourself out of this.

Save yourself a little time at the end to polish. Not a lot of time, like 2% of the making time is all you need. It won't be perfect, but that's what makes it perfect.

And this is the most important lesson of the day: stay grateful. You can't be anything without thanksgiving. Thanks to those who came before you, thanks to those who inspire you, thanks to those who formed your dreams, thanks to those whose dreams rest upon you, thanks to those who love you the most, but mostly, and most sincerely, thanks to the source of it all.

Thank you.