You are going to fail; it’s only a matter of time. You’ve thought about your life’s goal plenty of times, but something stops you from pursuing your dream. Maybe your parents want something else for you. Maybe common sense says it is impractical. Or maybe the world gets in your way.

Give yourself a moment to think what true satisfaction is.

Done? What did you come up with? Was your passion the focus of your thoughts, or was something else there?

We are told time and time again to pursue our passions because that is the only way for us to be truly happy.  But people still don’t do it. Why?

I can give you one simple word: fear.

You are afraid of what bumps the road to success will have, so you tell yourself that pursuing that business degree instead of that art degree is the logical choice. Still something inside you dies along the way. That death is your dream, and it doesn’t come back.

Look where we are. We are in college. So many others failed to get here, and so many dream of one day being where we are at this very moment. Why be here, if you are here just to take up space? Why pursue something that you aren’t happy doing? What is life about if all you do is what other people expect of you instead of what you expect for yourself?

It’s about that book that you want to write. It’s about that child that you want to save when you become a doctor. It’s about all those dreams that we have as free people, but more importantly, it’s about the pursuit of those dreams.

There will be hardship along the way. Failure will be there.  It is always there on the road to success. Anything worth doing will include failing at it at least once, but it’s what we do with that failure that determines who we will become.

I wanted to be a comedian in the worst way. I dreamed about it when I went to sleep and when I awoke; it’s all I thought about. But I was afraid to do it at first because I was terrified of people who would not laugh at my jokes. I wanted the fantasy to be perfect in that everyone would find me funny but in reality, I was afraid. I wanted praise from the audience at all times, and I was afraid to hear the silence. I got over that fear however, and I conquered it when I was fifteen, and you can conquer yours.

There was failure though. I’ve stood up on stage and said things that were my best material only to have silence greet me. It is both heart wrenching and comical at the same time, but there is value in it.

The value in failing was coming face-to-face with the worst possible outcome and surviving. Being able to take the hardest hits that life gives and keep going is what makes us stronger and gives us hope for tomorrow.

You know, it’s likely that most of us won’t be happy in life for a myriad of reasons. The singular one that I am most certainly aware of is this: If I don’t try to accomplish my dreams then I will miss the point of this great adventure entirely. Don’t miss out on your adventure folks, it’s your story to write.