You can see today as a shot, an opportunity, or orchestrated divinity from your yesterday’s.
Or, like most, you can see it as a do-over, a mulligan, or a repeat of the past.
Let’s talk about the past. Every experience, reaction, response, and thought you’ve had thus far brought you here to this thing before you called today.
So be careful, today, with your experiences, reactions, responses, and thoughts because they will create your tomorrow.
Today > Tomorrow until Tomorrow is called Today.
The short answer is no. You haven’t seen an instruction manual because there isn’t one.
Of course we don’t call it that though.
We call it college.
We call it the corporate ladder.
We call it schmoozing.
And now all of this isn’t making true on its promise to fulfill our dreams.
Here’s the catch: There isn’t a map for what you were sent here to do and there’s a reason something inside of you turns when you look out over an empty ocean.
Leave the shore. Sail your vessel. Return with your instruction manual.
Dearest Musician,
This is your time.
This is your canvas.
So gather your instruments, join your fellow musicians, and let your music play.
Know that you are a better teacher for yourself than any book will ever be. Listen to the mirror.
However, it’s not what you know that will fulfill you. It’s what you become when you do what you do and witnessing who that impacts that will fulfill you.
Keep a lookout for the unseen, untouched, and unloved people, places, and things. There is great opportunity in such discoveries.
And lastly, say no to karaoke and yes to something original.
Yours truly,
Two Thousand and Fourteen
…then linger around those you want to be like.
Linger around your Muse.
Linger around love, leadership, and whatever a combination of the two looks like.
Then move.
Dreams don’t come to fruition via osmosis.
You could list yours and I could list mine, and chances are that our heroes, different as they may be, have a lot in common with each other.
We bestow the name hero to those that show us tenacity, hustle, love, selflessness, compassion, inspiration, imagination, loyalty, and the like. You can’t hand these things off…they can only be rubbed off on another.
Want to give a gift to someone? Share with them they’re heroism in your life.
Few gifts linger longer than someone speaking truth and gratitude into one’s music they make.
Ashton.Gustafson 