I have to be honest, my life these days has been quite full of failure. With that being said, I suppose a lot of my inspiration and “rubber-band-man” attitude seemed to have left me for a while there.
I recently went home to South Dakota to visit my family, and I swear that place has a way of helping me find myself. One night I had a conversation with my brother about our childhood. It is quite remarkable how perceptions can lead us to develop such faulty interpretations of the past. My brother, like many, thought I have always been the happiest most confident individual. In reality, that is far from the truth. Certain events, people, and memories made me hate myself growing up.
I’m good now. I’m Happy. But for me to brush those memories under the rug was wrong, and completely unhealthy.
Kanye West said it best, “everything I’m not made me everything I am.” All my life people have told me I can’t do this, I’ll never make it, I’m not smart enough, I’m not fast enough, I’m not strong enough, and so on. For the longest time I let them crush my aspirations, as well as my dreams. Why people hate on ambition is beyond me.
For the longest time I listened to them…I didn’t always keep my head up like my nose was bleeding. I let peoples’ negative thoughts affect my happiness. Somewhere along my journey to Arizona, I had a change of attitude…and I found the Taylor you know today.
I quit caring about what everyone else thought, and focused more on the opinions of the people who truly loved me. Most importantly, I started to value what I thought about myself. My fraternity has this truly amazing program called Push America, which raises awareness and funds for people with disabilities. Push America shifts the focus to what people can do, rather than what they can’t. What abilities they do have, not their involuntary setbacks. I decided to do the same.
I may never run an 800 in 1:47, get straight A’s, or make a million dollars, but maybe that’s not what God intended me to do. Maybe all I will ever achieve is making a few people smile, marrying an incredible wife, raising some wonderful kids, and smiling more days than not. What’s so wrong with that? I’m not about to complain that I wasn’t given the talent that others have been given, because I was given the same…in a different regard.
I will step off my soap box, and quit preaching. That’s my story, or snapshot at it I suppose.
In closing, I will quote a man by the name of Steve:
To give anything less than your best would be to sacrifice the gift.
What’s yours?
Keep your head up like your nose is bleedin',
TJF
True Story Nas, you tell em.
