A few weeks ago, I saw the movie Slumdog Millionaire which I highly recommend. It’s a very graphic and sometimes disturbing but very powerful story about a teenager from India who became a contestant on the Indian version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”
When the 18 year old is one question away from answering the final question and the show breaks for the night, the police arrest him on suspicions of cheating. They don’t understand how he knows all of the answers being that he’s an orphan from the slums of Mumbai.
The movie is about his tragic experiences and how and why he knew the answers he did.
During the movie, I kept thinking about how lucky I am! The opportunities and privileges we have are endless.
The opportunities to be or do anything you want have never been greater. I don’t care how badly you think you have it.
Yet, it seems as though more and more people feel sorry for themselves. So many people seem less than thrilled with their lives and jobs.
The tools are endless, the wealth of knowledge is staggering and the amounts of people out there that can (and want to!) help you get to where you want to be are in abundance.
There is no excuse for you not to have your dream life. Your dream relationship. Your dream job. So what if you fall short? If you aim for the stars and reach the moon that ain’t so bad.
In fact, I feel it’s an obligation for you to at least try. How can you not? How can you not go after your dreams?
But still it’s so easy to blame someone or something for how bad you have it.
Maybe we have too many opportunities? Are we too lucky? Are we too comfortable?
Is it easier for someone like Eminem to become ‘Eminem’ because he wasn’t giving up a six-figure job. He wasn’t going against the grain. There were no expectations for him to be successful.
Do people who have nothing to lose have an advantage over those who have something to lose?
I get emails constantly from people who want to switch careers. But they have endless excuses because they feel they have too much to lose. And because of that they have endless rationalizations.
So essentially, they believe they have too many opportunities and too many privileges.
No matter what you have to lose, as far as I know, you only get one shot on this Earth. I don’t remember ever being here before. You might as well make the best of it, right?
And there is only reason you won’t become the person you want to become.
Because of the limitations you set on yourself.
Limitations = excuses = rationalizations = never getting to where you truly want to be.
The question isn’t if the rationalizations will happen. The question is: are you going to be brutally honest with yourself.
Only you are holding yourself back no matter how much you think you have to lose.
Only I am holding myself back.