Have you ever thought to yourself, I cannot do that, I am too old or That dream will take too long. It is unrealistic. *slowly raises hand* I am going to be the first to admit how I let time punk me out again and again.

Growing up, I used to constantly cage myself in, holding myself back from opportunity. I would see someone killing it on the soccer field in middle school and think How did they get so great? They must have been doing this for years. I would automatically assume that the time it would take me to learn and perfect certain skills disqualified me from even trying. Or sometimes, I would try and never give it my all. I would give it eighty five percent, floating just above mediocre. After all, I wasn't the kind of person that could ever master the soccer field or have the lead vocal in a choir performance. Who was I to think that I could live out loud like that (outside of my imagination)? Besides, it was much more fun to "dabble" in everything instead of giving a handful of things my unwavering devotion. What if I failed? I didn't have time for all of that...big failure and such. But as the years have progressed, I've realized that without risking big failure you, in turn, risk opting out of the opportunity for big success.

When people are dying, if they regret anything, it isn't that their lives weren't stable enough; it's not all the choices they made or opportunities they took. They regret the things they did not do. Studies show people tend to regret not following their dreams much more often than they regret just taking the leap and giving it a try.

Honestly, mediocrity is always an option, but chasing your dreams may not always be. So when you have an opportunity to make a way for yourself, seize it. Chasing your dreams can only end up two ways...you either succeed or you don't; and if you don't, it's not like your life is over. If anything, you will have learned at least one way that doesn't work which puts you one step closer to finding a way that does. So many successful people had huge failures before they were considered successful: Michael Jordan, J.K. Rowling, Oprah, Steve Jobs, Einstein, Stephen Spielberg, Thomas Edison, Sidney Poitier and the list goes on and on. Failure is part of the necessary growing pains toward success; and failing doesn't make you a failure. It just means you're growing.

You only have one life and there will only ever be one of you...forever. Don't waste such an incredible opportunity chasing someone else's dreams. There may be other people already doing what you want to do but the beauty of that is since there is only one you, only you will ever have your exact life experiences. Many times in life, we only truly relate to a handful of other people and for that reason, your journey could be the only one that ever gives someone else the courage they need to embark on their own path. You never know. Chase your dreams in such a way that the high of the almost success drives you to try again and again and again... Don't let your struggles be in vain. Remember Newton's third law: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction; which means that if extreme failure is possible, extreme success must inevitably exist somewhere along the line, right? It's simply physics.

It has taken me a long time to reach this point and I still teeter on the edge of uncertainty sometimes; but after a while, the impact of the fall from failure to failure awakens you to new ways of looking at life. You are going to fail regardless. Whether its on the way to building someone else's dreams or your own is totally up to you. I don't know about you but I figure if I'm going to fall a couple of times anyway, it might as well be from the highest, most beautiful heights I could ever imagine.