I would rather be dead than to wake up one morning, fifty years from today, painfully aware that I let myself amount to nothing. I have known great men, and I have known the poorest of men, not in the riches of money and property, but in the wealth of character, conviction, and integrity. To be a poor man in these things is to have truly wasted your life.

A man’s character, conviction, and integrity should be his code; the laws in which he is identifiable to himself and to everyone around him. If he does not have a code then he does not know in what ways to define himself and will certainly not be his own man, but instead, a lackey to whoever shall offer him the most in terms of worldly pleasure or the false assurances of possessing purpose by feeding off of another’s.

Every man must find a place where he is unmovable, else it will become apparent that he does not value his own judgment in his convictions and therefore pronouncing to the world that neither should they do so. If you find yourself struggling to gain the respect of your peers, friends, family, or anyone you would like it from, I would suggest that you stop trying to be someone they would like. Instead of going out of your way to impress, understand that the reason you don’t have respect is because you are as easily influenced by the wills and attitudes of others as a rogue boat that sets no sail letting the ocean take it where it pleases.

Set your sails! Pick a course and go onward without a single care for the tantrums of wailing winds and beating rains. Go on because you know the way that is your own and that whether the rain shall let you pass into the sunshine or swallow you up into the deep, the storm will know your name. In your success or your failure, it will see how you defy it. It will see that, like itself, you are your own shining entity that is insoluble to the wills of others. Only that which does not conform can distinguish itself as different, and only then will your name define you.

That is what it comes down to, your name. Your name isn’t just a sound to match your face, your name carries with it every deed you’ve ever done and everything you’ll ever say. When people say your name, it will carry not just your name, but a hundred thousand words that will all tell them who you are. And from your name they will decide whether you are a person worthy of their respect.

And what is respect? Respect is to be acknowledged. To say with a single look that I know who you are without dispute, and that I honor you for not hiding yourself from the world. If we are not respected by those around us, it means that we are no one, because you can only respect someone if you really know who they are and the unrespectable are not bothered with to be known at all.

To be respectable is to be known, which, to the insecurity of others, is seen as boredom and monotony because they cannot understand the man who knows himself. How could the insecure understand anyone for that matter when they have no sense of a secure identity themselves, when they don’t even know who they are themselves? Convinced that it is better to be codeless and therefore unrestricted they chase that which they find easy to conform. It is exciting never knowing what that person might do next, that is the thrill of it. When the thrill is gone, however, as all storms must settle, and you look to that person for support, comfort, or love, you will find that you cannot know a person who has not the integrity or character to know himself. And soon you will find that the reason you feel so alone in a room full of people is because those people are nobody, and you’re just looking for somebody, anybody, to tell you who you are.

I tell you, set your sails. Do not worry about those who critique your journey, for the critics are too busy looking at you to realize they’re still sitting in the sand, yelling at a man who on his way to where he wants to go. You can only be a great man if you know yourself, if not then you must make it your undying priority to find who you are or you will be lost at sea not because you are stranded, but because you had not the courage to pick a direction in which to sail.