Living inspired is born in the awareness that this is it! We have but one chance at life, and the wonderful gift we are given each morning is the choice of how we are going to live that moment, that day.
To fight or to give up? This is it, the most basic and the hardest choice in life.
Video game: Cryostasis: The Sleep of Reason
I shall decide what I do. If you say my work is fighting, or healing, or exploring, or whatever you might say, I’ll always be thinking about it. And if I do end up doing that, I’ll be resentful because it’ll feel as if I didn’t have a choice, and if I don’t do it, I’ll feel guilty because I should. Whatever I do, I will choose it, no one else.
Book: “The Amber Spyglass” by Philip Pullman
Every choice carries a consequence. For better or worse, each choice is the unavoidable consequence of its predecessor. There are not exceptions. If you can accept that a bad choice carries the seed of its own punishment, why not accept the fact that a good choice yields desirable fruit?
Bart: “Look at me I’m a grad student. I’m 30 years old and made $600 last year.”
Marge: “Bart don’t make fun of grad students. They just made a terrible life choice.”
Marge: “Bart don’t make fun of grad students. They just made a terrible life choice.”
TV: The Simpsons
Work hard, work passionately, but apply your most precious asset—time—to what is meaningful to you. What are you willing to do for the rest of your life? does not mean, literally, what will you do the rest of your life? That question would be absurd, given the inevitability of change. No, what the question really asks is, if your life were to end suddenly and unexpectedly tomorrow, would you be able to say you’ve been doing what you truly care about today? What would you be willing to do for the rest of your life? What would it take to do it right now?
Book: The Monk and The Riddle: The Education of a Silicon Valley Entrepreneur
The past is a gaping hole. You try to run from it, but the more you run, the deeper, more terrible it grows behind you, its edges yawning at your heels. Your only chance is to turn around and face it. But its like looking down into the grave of your love. Or kissing the mouth of a gun, a bullet trembling in its dark nest, ready to blow your head off.
Video game: Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne
The past is a gaping hole. Your only chance is to turn around and face it. but it’s like kissing the lips of your dead love, darkness waiting in the hole of her mouth. We are willing to suffer, to die for the things we care about. For love, for the right choices.
Video game: Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne
Everything is subjective. choices, answers, good and evil.
Video game: Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne
The past is a puzzle, like a broken mirror. As you piece it together, you cut yourself, your image keeps shifting, and you change with it. It could destroy you, drive you mad, it could set you free. You’ll see the choices you didn’t know you’d made, like staying at work late to chat with a friend, instead of hurrying home to your family kissing her, I think of the cold laws of cause and effect.
Video game: Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne
Firing a gun is a binary choice, you either pull the trigger or you don’t.
Video game: Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne
Obviously, I’m going to choose an example where the math is easy.