As I was growing up I learned many things, but one thing very well. I learned that everyone has a set of unique beliefs and that many of us hold those beliefs firmly over the course of our lives. We all believe in some idea, a monotheistic, polytheistic, or atheistic religion, a set of moral rules that you have developed over the years, a core set of family values, we all have some type of rules we live by.
We all have this unique foundation. I found the selection of this foundation, be it a religion or otherwise, to be something that I would spend the rest of my life deciding. It made no sense to pick a belief without thoroughly understanding who I was first and that task alone would be a hefty schedule to do within a single lifetime. I realized that many people claim the choice of this foundation is the key to finding oneself so I would definitely not neglect opening myself up to the understanding of these ideas, but identifying myself as part of an entity before fully understanding who I was and what said entity was would feel fraudulent at best.
In my travels and in the understanding of other individuals throughout my life I realized that there was one prevalent characteristic that was highly valued across individuals regardless of their beliefs. This was the knowledge that working hard and being dedicated in the things that you do in your life would be the difference between living and simply being alive. Effort is the skeletal structure of hard work. If you work hard, you will create something that is genuine. Now, if you learn to do this every day of your life, you will realize that as you move forward, only sincere effort and dedication is what matters. When you look back you will not remember the days in which you did nothing because they were meaningless. I keep myself dedicated because I fear the wasting of time. One of my biggest fears is looking back and realizing that yesterday's laziness killed today's dreams.
People have this belief that dreams can suddenly come true, that today you will wake up and suddenly life will be different. They could not be more wrong. Dreams are made up of putting down bricks every day until five or ten years from now you admire your castle, the one that took blood, sweat, and tears for years and years.
I do it because not doing it is the wrong kind of failing. I do it because when I have the choice of failure or failure, I choose to fail by trying and trying and trying. Let it be known that this kind of failure is not negative for you have failed at a task, but not failed yourself.
In all of this I have learned that no matter what was true, whether there was a god, whether there was no true purpose in life other than random chance creating humanity, I realized that working hard would make me feel infinitely better than not working hard. It was the stepping stone to a quality experience, the stepping stone to everything that makes me happy and that inspires others around me. It is perhaps the only thing I know with such certainty, but I hold onto it dearly for it has changed who I am and who I will become.
One step at a time, I will take on the giants by standing on their shoulders instead of getting crushed by their feet. You must try harder every day, and soon enough what you did on Day 1 will be a trivial pursuit to a resilient soul on Day 100.
Keep doing it every day. Keep fighting. It's not worth it to stop because the work you do not do today is the equivalent of pulling yet another Jenga piece out of your future dream. It is only a matter of time before you wake up to shattered dreams and end up having to pick up months of failure because you forgot to work on what mattered every day because you had the belief that your dream would come true if you thought about it every day. It won't come true.
You have to make it happen, or it won't happen. It's that simple.
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