The urge to compromise - on our dreams, our goals, in our relationships - is overwhelming. Temptation to deviate from the ideal is all around us and more often than we'd like to admit, we settle for a cheap imitation in order to arrive at "good enough." My friends, this should not be. So many times, we accept the good when we need the extraordinary. We take what almost-as-good offers us because we're tired, it's late, we're out of money, and we can't see the end of the rainbow. Many of us then sink in to a routine, coddling our pet called Mediocrity and telling ourselves that's what we really want. We replace the story welling within our hearts with a half-truth in order to cope with how things turned out.
How much more exceptional our lives could be if we no longer accepted cheap imitations! How much more could we be full of life and passion if we journeyed without stopping until we possessed the very thing our heart has been desiring!
Cheap imitations are all around us, filling airwaves and space and time with their offers of comfort and ease. Trade hard work for rest and you're destined to live a life half as good as it could be.
We trade the scenic routes for shortcuts.
We trade conversation for text messages.
We trade education for a degree.
We trade creativity for rules.
We trade intimacy for sex.
We trade art for predictability.
We trade meaningful work for money.
We trade community for Facebook.
We trade free thought for religion.
We trade vulnerability for anonymity.
We trade discovery for safety.
We trade health for diets.
We trade unanswerable questions for incomplete answers.
We trade wild expectations for ourselves for the opinions of others.
Some of us like boxes. We like the neat packaging and the formulaic nature of knowing what's inside. Congratulations. The box contains exactly what you think it does.
We have got to get to a place where we stop buying things simply because they're affordable. We've got to get to a place where we're willing to sell everything we have in order to own the one thing worth more than anything else.
Your dreams are not for sale or trade.