So you were born with a wooden fork
Instead of a silver spoon.
Perhaps you were born with nothing at all,
Except maybe the dirty rag you were wrapped in
And tossed into a trash bin,
Or worse.
I get it.
You are off to a rough start my friend.
Circumstances will be stacked upon you
Until you bend
Or break;
In an attempt to snuff you out before you realize what's at stake;
That as bad as this is,
It’s only your beginning;
Not your end.
Understand that you were raised
To believe in pass or fail,
On track or derailed;
That some will advance
While you,
You will exist in a world where the opportunities
Are so few and far between
That you can't possibly prevail
Against the absoluteness of your impending failure.
Except...
Failure is not absolute.
At some point in life you will be told
Beyond the shadow of a doubt,
Perhaps as a whisper or a shout,
You..can't...do...that.
And it will be true...
Unless you choose not to believe it;
Unless you accuse the whisperer of lying;
Unless you stand as sure as you can be in yourself
And ask them,
“What’s the harm in trying?
What is there to lose
Except for the time that I might waste?
Isn’t it my time to waste?”
Then forcibly remove them from your face
And evict them from the space around you;
Because you’ve got work to do.
Failure is not absolute!
It’s simply the wrong attitude taken
When you achieve less than you expected;
When you focus on what you’ve missed
And allow those lesser achievements
To be neglected.
Don’t you see?
Failure is a choice.
And if failure is a choice
Then success must be as well.
Contrary to how it seems,
You don’t need a crown to be king or queen
Because the rules don’t matter.
You can change the rules.
While you’re at it, change the entire game.
Ignore how society paints you.
Find your voice and, as loud as you can, proclaim:
I RULE MY DOMAIN!
Then stand firm in your position
and brace for the onslaught of suppositions
hurled at you by those who never really knew you.
After this, push forward towards your goals no matter what.
Be either water moving fast
or slow like lava; but blaze your own path.
Keep pressing forward until every atom in you gives up.
And while the next breath may not be your last, breathe deeply anyway;
As if you’re inhaling nonstop from January to the end of May.
Breathe like you’re a God giving life to clay
and live every moment of it.
Fuse with it as though you were the sun;
as if you’ve played the lottery a million times...and won;
as if Kipling’s minute is not long enough for the distance you run.
So that in the end,
When life closes it’s letter with “best regards"
and thinks it’s all said and done,
You can reply with...
Dear Life:
You’ve done your worst,
But I’ve won!