Life comes and goes in a blink of an eye. Before we know it, we grow older, opportunities pass us by, and we often times look back in regret. Seize the moments. The happiness in our lives is based on what type of outlook we choose. Should we stay focused and take more things with a grain of salt instead of quickly accentuating the negative and convincing ourselves that we are traveling down a path to failure perhaps the hurdles of life will begin to appear to us less and less. Many of us are very sensitive. We often times are harder on ourselves than we should be. Our personalities sometimes allow us to take certain things personally that actually have nothing to do with us to begin with. We must rise above fear and confusion and try to convince ourselves that deep inside we are all strong. Life is a beautiful gift and we must choose to embrace and appreciate it. We should never take a single day for granted. Each morning we rise is a new opportunity, a clean slate to keep following our dreams.
Bukowski once wrote, “Your life is your life. Don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission”. The poem “Invictus” says, “I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul”. Perhaps these two passages should serve as a kind of motivation. Our life really is our life. We should never waste it living somebody else’s. Unfortunately, too many of us feel weak or afraid to make changes. There is nothing wrong with putting your foot down, claiming your life, and taking the first step down the path you choose. Life continues to pass us by, the clock of life keeps ticking, days turn into nights and nights turn into days, and each moment is a new opportunity to turn things around.
I am friends with a retired doctor, who at age eighty-five, has always had one of the most positive outlooks on life. He is soft spoken and full of wisdom. He says he understood the game of life many years ago and each time we meet shares a new piece of advice. Today, he said life is a game that we must learn how to play and enjoy. Although it sounds very simple, perhaps it does take a curious mind and self-confidence to actually understand how to play the game.
Self-confidence is inside each and every one of us and we each learn how to find a way to tap into it and bring it to light at different points in our lives. There are those who wish and wait and hope that the moment will come naturally and those who decide when the moment arrives and tap into their souls and unleash the motivation and self-confidence that ultimately creates the drive that takes them down their chosen paths.
In conclusion, the game of life is what we choose to make of it and how we choose to play it. Either we tap into our souls and find our inner strength or we go through life scared and worried. We can learn the meaning of gratitude and appreciate what we have or struggle every day with wanting more than we really need to reach our happiness. The game of life can be simple if we choose it to be. We must learn to appreciate the good and the bad, interpret things as we wish, learn to be strong and stay strong, and follow our path to happiness, because each and every one of us deserves to be happy and too often, amongst our misery and discontent, the happiness we long for and deserve is right beneath our noses, we just need to realize it and learn how to grasp it.
Guido Maniscalco's World 