Mortality and excellence

The older we get the more our heroes and childhood memories of what we loved pass on.

When I was younger, I had two sports idols and those two remain my only real idols in all of sports; Bo Jackson and Jonah Lomu.

Bo because he was an absolute gift of a man on the field, Jonah because he took the game of rugby and owned it during his career.

Jonah died today in NZ from his kidney disease and things pop into my head from my life which make me feel a little introspective.

A lot of what ifs…

What if I didn’t rebel so much as a teenager?

What if I didn’t drink so much and throw away prime parts of my life when I could have been bettering myself?

What if I listened to my mom more instead of trying to do it my way?

What if…

All those are pointless because each and every moment in my life, every situation and every choice led me to be who I am today.

Will I be where I am now, doing what I love if I didn’t make so many mistakes in life or would I be sitting in an office wishing I had the balls to do what I love?

Would I be 41 years old and still attacking the gym with a mission or would I be that lazy shit who sits around and makes excuses?

Would my mom and I be as close as we are today because I respected her strength as a parent through the hell I put her through or would I be that adult that thinks about her casually because I always did what was right?

Would I be so willing to take risks in life to get what I want out of it or would I be content with a white picket fence and a Taurus?

When you think about mortality and what you have in front of you, you can either accept it, better it or complain about it.

We have choices in life and we are going to make bad ones along the way. We are going to fuck up, we are going to piss people off, we are going to disappoint people and that is how life is.

There is nothing wrong with looking back and wondering what might have been, but there is a problem when you allow that to dictate who you are.

Who we are today is a gift born from those decisions and from failure. We have choices from this moment on to either make excuses or to accept what we are and improve on it.

Do you want to enter a PL meet and compete? Do it.

Do you want to travel? Do it.

Do you want to stop being so disappointed in what you think you could have been and start being what you want to be? Fucking do it.

This is all part of life, mortality creeps up on you when your heroes die. Little things like your parents growing old and seeing your childhood friends’ children graduate high school.

There is never a time which isn’t the right time to create something better for yourself, regardless of what you came from, what you did, how badly you fucked up or how trapped you feel now in your situation.

Each and every day I wake up wondering how my day will go, will it be a success for me or will I disappoint myself. That choice is on me and nobody else.

Make that same choice for you.

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