You got the blueprint in your head, the dreamscape in your heart, the unquenchable thirst in your bones.

You’re tired of living as a dignified paragon of self-moderation. You think a touch of Ebola is a blessing-and-a-half compared to spending another minute as a cubicle-dwelling non-entity. In fact, despite your mannerly appearance (your conscious compliance to become a lonely nothing), you’d like nothing more than to shake things up, to call attention to yourself, to run around giggling like an elf and go too far and feel like a goddamn boss.

And yet what do you do?

Nothing.

“But you don’t understand, man. You don’t know what I’ve been through. I’m different.”

Sit down and shut the fuck up.

Everybody’s different and that’s why we are all the same. And besides, hasn’t it occurred to you that there is someone out there worse than you who is still accomplishing more than you?

You can stay up all night, searching the internet for answers. You can go to your “friends” and engage in emotional stock trading to up your shares. But the truth is your excuses are lame and your cowardice is legitimately disgusting. You know the answers all along—you just don’t want to do it.

“But—but you don’t understand, dude. I wasn’t born into it. I have to work twice as hard just to get what others are given.”

Silence, you slime!

So you’re not “born into it.” Well boo-fuckin-hoo! What are you gonna do? Just bitch and give up, really? Is that the extent of your courage? Whatever happened to all the inspiring movies you’ve recommended, the books you’ve read, the songs you’ve listened to, the quotations you’ve memorized and the people you’ve idolized? Why you oughta be ashamed of yourself!

Besides how do you plan to spend the next thirty years? Stare at your balls until it turns Barney-the-Dinosaur purple? Wait for validation, acceptance and tolerance? And one more thing, this new-age “tolerance” bullshit is nothing more than a modern fad, a buzzword that gets people all riled up with no historical basis whatsoever. I mean, can you imagine Martin Luther King asking racists to tolerate black people? Or women in the civil rights movement asking to be tolerated by men? How silly is that?

No, they didn’t ask to be tolerated. They didn’t wait around to be allowed and for opinions to change. Instead they acted on their own and became undeniable—indestructible. And that’s what you need to do.

Stop waiting for approbation and permission. Stop waiting to be allowed and confirmed. Second-guessing yourself is not a good use of your time. You don’t need safety or guarantees. What you need is path and purpose—an intense micro-focus. What you need is to downsize your needs and upgrade your tenacity like a flaming dragon punch in the gut so you can wake the fuck up.

You owe it to yourself and the people that want to see you succeed to actually make it. Those that truly love you have already placed their bets and they’re counting on you. So you have to count on yourself to break through.

Look in the mirror and take a good look at yourself. You might not look like much. Hell you might even look like a sunken-eyed giant with a nervous system of a sloth. Or you might just look like you haven’t brushed your teeth in two weeks and you smell like pee. Either way, realize that what you are looking at is what heaven sent to save you from your darkest nights. Made in Hell to scale the pits of Tartarus.

We are all made of feelings and you have the human raw materials to make something unique, something truly your own.

Ok, times up!

Now you have to make a decision. The second-half is about to start and there is no turning back.

Remember that regrets are always more expensive than failure. Put your smile back on and look your dreams in the eye one more time. Take life as it is and take it straight. Put away the creamers and the sweeteners because there’s no such thing as half-a-dreamer.

Now go out there and break bad.

Till the next rant.

—R