Don’t be afraid to share an idea that gets your heart pumping, no matter how half-baked it may be, no matter how much resistance it meets. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. If your heart is in the right place, you’ll find that people are not only happy to help, but that inviting someone into your effort to matter allows them to matter, too. Don’t be afraid of being afraid. Fear is the gateway to better. Don’t be afraid to look stupid. Stupidity is bravery in disguise.
To possess a wise heart, one that understands the fundamentally impenetrable calculus of mortality, we must face the fact that we are dying. That we will die. And the time to do this is long before death is imminent. Death’s reality shakes us awake like nothing else can, compelling us to seize the opportunities that arrive each day to live more intentionally and love more fully—not with a sense of panic but with a sense of sacred urgency. Not to obsess over our mortality, but to realize that while everything we do holds the potential for having an impact now, it also contains the promise of the only thing that can grant us anything close to immortality: our legacy.
The focal point of my life and the hallmark of my success would be inexorably linked to my ability to live for something greater than myself.
The truth of the matter is, though, that while we may hunger for meaning and impact, and while that hunger may be absolutely genuine, unless we think consciously about how to make it happen, unless we approach building a life of meaning and impact like a job, we remain far more likely to look back with regret upon all we wished we’d done. The better option is to put ourselves in a position to call the shots and stomp out those regrets before they have a chance to multiply.
We all want to build our lives with intention, deliberately and consciously, so how we live our life aligns with what matters to us the most. A central part of that is living for something bigger than ourselves, so ultimately we feel that we are leading a life that matters, that our brief presence on this earth made some kind of difference.
