You’ll never be great trying to be someone else.
Everyone seems to have an opinion about your life. What you should and shouldn’t do. Who you should do it with. They always seem to find more things you shouldn’t be doing than they find that they approve of.
There’s a reason others want you to change
They want you to be like them. They are looking through their eyes. When they see you,they immediately see things that don’t line up with them, their opinions, their preferences, their priorities and goals. They are quick to belittle, criticize and ridicule things they don’t like or even approve of. That’s the world at work…squeezing us into their mold…killing our individuality.
If you want to do great things you must be you.
No one really knows what’s inside you. You don’t even know what’s inside you. There’s only one way to find out. That is to follow your curiosity and to see where it takes you. That’s what moves you. That’s what energizes you and gives you special motivation. That’s what pushes you to reach whatever heights you are capable of…your inner drive.
Steve Jobs parents didn’t know what was inside of him.
He didn’t either. But he followed his muse and it changed him while it changed the world. The same is true of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, All of our Presidents, the great scientists…even Albert Einstein. Throughout history the great have emerged as they followed their dreams.
Ray Bradbury lived his life this way
Bradbury was an American fantasy, science fiction, horror and mystery fiction writer. He was incredibly successful. His website www.raybradbury.com says it best…
In a career spanning more than seventy years, Ray Bradbury has inspired generations of readers to dream, think, and create. A prolific author of hundreds of short stories and close to fifty books, as well as numerous poems, essays, operas, plays, teleplays, and screenplays, Bradbury was one of the most celebrated writers of our time. His groundbreaking works include Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. He wrote the screen play for John Huston’s classic film adaptation of Moby Dick, and was nominated for an Academy Award. He adapted sixty-five of his stories for television’s The Ray Bradbury Theater, and won an Emmy for his teleplay of The Halloween Tree. In 2005, Bradbury published a book of essays titled Bradbury Speaks, in which he wrote: “In my later years I have looked in the mirror each day and found a happy person staring back. Occasionally I wonder why I can be so happy. The answer is that every day of my life I’ve worked only for myself and for the joy that comes from writing and creating.”
All of this was set in motion by an incident he had at age 9. Above is his letter explaining the whole thing. (click image to enlarge)
