It is not death most people are afraid of.
It is getting to the [end] of life only to realize
that you never
truly lived.

There was a study [done] — a hospital study on 100 elderly people.
Facing death, close to their last breath,
they were asked to reflect about their life’s biggest regret.
Nearly all of them said they regretted not the things they did,
but the things they didn’t do —
the risks they never took,
the dreams.
The dreams they didn’t pursue.

I ask you,
will your last words be, “If only I had…”?

Hey, you.
Wake up.
Why do you exist?
Life is not meant to simply work, wait for the weekend, and pay rent.
No, no.
I don’t know much, but I know this:
every person on this earth has a gift.

And [I] apologize to the Black community,
but I can no longer pretend.
Martin Luther King — that [man] never had a dream.
That dream had him.

See, people don’t choose dreams.
Dreams choose them.
So [the] question I’m getting to is:
Do you have the courage to grab the dream that picked you,
that [befits] you and grips you?
Or will you let it get away and slip through?

You know, I learned a fact about airplanes the other day —
now this was… this was so surprising.
See, I was talking to a pilot and he told me that many of his
passengers think planes are dangerous to fly in.
But he said actually,
it is a lot more dangerous for a plane to stay on the ground.

Say what? Like how does that sound?

Well, he said —
because on the ground, the plane starts to rust,
malfunction, and wear,
much faster than it ever would if it was in the air.

As I walked away, I thought — yeah, makes total sense.
Because planes were built to live in the skies.
And every person was built to live out the dream they have inside.

So it is perhaps the saddest loss to live a life on the ground
without ever taking off.

See, most of us are afraid of the thief that comes in the night
to steal all of our things.
But there is a thief in your mind who is after your dreams.
His name is doubt.

If you see him, call the cops and keep him away from the kids,
[’cuz] he is wanted [for] murder —
for he has killed more dreams than failure ever did.

He wears many disguises,
and like a virus, will leave you blinded, divided,
and turn you into a kinda.

See, kinda is lethal.
You know what kinda is?
It’s a lot of kinda people.

You kinda want a career change.
You kinda want to get straight A’s.
You kinda want to get in shape.

Simple math — no numbers to crunch:
If you kinda want something,
then you will kinda get the results you want.

What is your dream?
What ignites that spark?
You can’t kind of want that.
You must want it with every part of your whole heart.

Will you struggle?
Yeah.
Yeah, you will struggle.
No way around it.
You will fall many times.
But who’s counting?

Just remember:
There’s no such thing as a smooth mountain.
If you want to make it to the top,
then there are sharp ridges that must be stepped over.
There will be times you get stressed
and things you get depressed over.

But let me tell you something —
Steven Spielberg was rejected from film school three times.
Three times.
But he kept going.

The television execs fired Oprah — said she wasn’t fit for TV.
But she kept going.

Critics told Beyoncé that she couldn’t sing.
She went through depression.
But she kept going.

Struggle and criticisms are prerequisites for greatness.
That is the law of this universe.
And no one escapes it.

Because pain is life —
but you can choose what type.

Either the pain on the road to success,
or the pain of being haunted with regret.

You want my advice?
Don’t think twice.
[We] have been given a gift that we call life —
so don’t blow it.

You are not defined by your [past].
Instead, you are born anew in each moment.
So own it.

Now.
Sometimes you gotta leap
and grow your wings on the way down.
[You] [better] get this shot off before the clock runs out
because there’s no overtime in life.

No do-over.
And I know I sound like I’m preaching or speaking with force —
but if you don’t use your gift,
then you sell out not only yourself,
but the whole world.

So what invention do you have buried in your mind?
What idea?
What cure?
What skill do you have inside
to bring out to this universe?

Uni — meaning one.
Verse — meaning song.

You have a part to play in this song.
So grab that microphone and be brave.
Sing your heart out on life’s stage.

You cannot go back and make a [Brand-new] beginning —
but you [can] start now
and make a brand new ending.

(~by Prince Ea)