L IF e

At one age you had it.

Until one day, you woke up and it was gone. Stolen from you like a thief in the night. When you realized it, you were dumbfounded, confused, and lost.

Eventually, this feeling became a part of your day to day life. Something perhaps sitting in the recesses of your mind. A phantom pain. An itch on a limb that you didn't even notice had gone missing. As you grew accustomed to this feeling and the real world, the feeling became bearable. Something that became a part of you. A part of daily life.

Until you ask a child what they want to be when they grow up, and they tell you they want to be a candy farmer.

You laugh.

How adorable.

How cute.

How stupid.

But you notice something in the child's eyes. A light. A confidence when they smile, they don't know how they will do it, but they will accomplish being a candy farmer.

It is then it hits you like a silver bullet of what had gone missing all those years ago. You knew exactly what you wanted to be. It may have changed here and there, but deep down you knew your purpose. You wanted to change the world.

Now, you just exist.

You lost the light behind your eyes.

You wanted to be an astronaut. You wanted to be a professional boxer. A scientist. The president. A pro basketball player. You wanted to be a candy farmer.

Okay, some of these may or may not have been the most realistic goals. The point was they gave you hope. They gave you the light behind your eyes. Despite the light growing dimmer and more of a shadow of itself. It is still there, trapped somewhere deep inside.

You think about it more, the itch comes back, you think What If? What if I went back to school? What if I took that trip? What if I made the career change? What if it's not so bad?

The light is rekindled, and radiates through you and in everything you do.

But then comes the many hypothetical's that may or may not happen.

What if I don't like it? What if it costs too much? What if I fail?

Then most of all, what if I’ve missed the real meaning, the beauty and true purpose of life? What if it's too late to recapture my youth?

All these things, these ifs, this fear of failure that we spend most of our precious time in debilitating fear of; are often the greatest deciders in where our lives end up.

You see, your greatest problem is yourself; but you are also your greatest treasure.

What if you just did it?

The word carrying perhaps the most weight in the word life, is the word in the middle of it.

If.

Fear not friend. Although, you may have lost the light behind your eyes, through diligent work it is something you can find once more.

Good luck and shine on.