The first was part of a blog post:
Get off the page, out of your box.
Be creative and bold and dance the dance of your life with wild abandon...
Like you've got nothing to lose.
Paint the canvas of your life liberally, generously,
With a flourish or whilst poring over every detail, but do it:
Like you've got nothing to lose.
Sing the song of your life with all the emotional color you can muster,
Every shade and nuance at your disposal.
Spare nothing and no-one, like
You've got nothing to lose.
Because really,
You have nothing to lose.
I thought this was beautifully phrased, but most importantly, illustrative of the fact that you never have anything to lose by trying your hardest. You will never have anything to lose by putting your health first. You will never have anything to lose by starting a diet or exercise program. You will never have anything to lose by failing, and trying again, and repeating the process until you succeed. Success is just the product of Failure to the nth degree; Everyone fails until they succeed. Period.
Which brings me to the second striking thing that I heard about this week. As you probably all know by now, Steve Jobs, founder and CEO (up until very recently when he stepped down due to his failing health) of Apple, finally succumbed to cancer yesterday. As a person in the technological field, this strikes me, because love or hate Apple products (and honestly, by and large I *loathe* them, although I do own an iPhone), Steve Jobs is a legend. An honest-to-god, up until yesterday walking-around-in-broad-daylight legend, in his own time. Steve Jobs was so much more than just a visionary; Steve Jobs LIVED the ideals of Nothing to Lose, No Fear, NO REGRETS. That man fell, personally and professionally, all the way to rock bottom, and climbed his way back up every time. I won’t even say he *clawed* his way back up. That wasn’t his way. Steve Jobs knew that every uphill climb started with a single step, and he never sat at the bottom of the cliff face, staring up the sheer wall, wondering how the hell he’d ever get back up there or bemoaning how far he’d climbed, and fallen, and would now have to climb again. Steve Jobs *knew* that he’d see the bottom of that cliff over and over again, and that each time, he’d have learned something very important that would get him higher *next* time. Steve Jobs knew the importance of Failure, that Failure^n = Success. He knew he had something in him that was greater than any obstacle, and he embraced it.
Steve Jobs also knew that he had nothing to lose, better than most of us do, because he lived every day of his life knowing it may very well be his last, that even if it wasn’t, the end was coming for him, and soon. We all know we’re going to die, but we don’t all walk around carrying it in our pocket, like a ticket about to expire. We can take our lives a little more for granted. But that also means that we take for granted that we’ll always have another chance.
Folks, you don’t always get another chance. You need to seize the moment TODAY! Carpe Diem! You have Nothing to Lose! You must LIVE your life, GO without fear!
They say, on our deathbeds, that people never express regrets for the things they did, only for the things they didn’t do. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to wake up, seemingly tomorrow, in my age and infirmity, on my deathbed, and be painfully aware of every missed opportunity. I may not be able to make everything I ever dreamed of in life happen, it’s true, but I want and need to know that I TRIED. THAT is no regrets. It’s living a life where you can never say you didn’t try. It’s not about always succeeding; remember, Success is just Failure^n. It’s about being willing to try and fail. It’s knowing you have nothing to lose, because in the end, the result is the same; we die. So if we’re all going to die…then what matters is how we live.
So folks, go out there and make TODAY the day that you seize the opportunity; that you take that first step up that sheer cliff face of self-improvement, whatever that may be for you. As Thoreau said, “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams; live the life you have imagined.”
Go get yourselves some today; there may never be a tomorrow.
Best wishes-
Lisa Roebuck
Love this!!
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