You know that feeling you get when you finish an extremely powerful book and have a life changing revelation? And not just any extremely powerful book. The ones that satisfy your craving for thought and your desperation for a resolution you didn't know you needed. It's that feeling of being wiser, more learned, more educated, more grown up. I feel it now, at 1am on a quiet Thursday morning, my mind racing with all the thoughts I can't say aloud because everyone else is asleep and is missing this incredible secret revelation that only MY soul knows.

I might not have been reading the works of the Dalai Lama, but I certainly gained some small grain of wisdom that I'll carry with me always. The knowledge that life is not only worth living, but that it demands to be lived.

That to let one's life slip by is the greatest travesty one can inflict upon oneself, and that the only remedy for this affliction is cold hard prevention. And this kind of recklessly brave living takes immense amounts of courage, a vital ingredient to living ones life.

However, courage is too often counted as a virtue, something staggeringly noble and out of reach, when it should be counted as an absolute given, a paving stone on the road to worlds previously undiscovered in our small, safe, comfortable lives. It is impossible to live a small, safe, comfortable life that is full of courage, because courage is the impetus to get the things done that you have always dreamed about but never accomplished because of the endless list of imaginary reasons why you couldn't.

There is no time for "I can't". There is no time for being afraid. It is imperative that you live your life as fully and as urgently as possible. Is there something recurring in your mind that you need to attend to? Or an unfulfilled dream that's nagging at your soul like an impatient child pulling at their mother's hand in excitement? Listen to it.

You MUST listen to it- you have no choice, because it is the very essence of your being that is appealing to your brain. Yes, that is important. Yes, that is valid and interesting and plausible. And most vehemently, yes, you SHOULD go after it immediately and as wholeheartedly as possible. Because the only four words you ever want to say on your deathbed are "At least I tried".