It’s a process. You won’t get this “right” anymore than anything else you approach through the eyes and mind of ambition. Simply being as you are, won’t be accomplished just because you intellectually choose it. However, if you hold in your mind that your goal is to serve yourself in being happy, in influencing others in positive ways, and in following what you really care about — eventually you’ll begin to act those feelings and thoughts out.

Be yourself, seriously, because those that matter don’t mind and those that mind don’t matter. The only one whose opinion of you matters is, yours. You’ll build character and happiness by focusing on that, not the frets, strings, or chords you play.

I write music, and I’m not very good, but what I do play is sincere, and that moves people. People say “Nice job, you are good” — I’m good, because I’m me, not because my music is better than others they’ve heard.

My priority is happiness, to express myself in my writing, and to sing the songs I want to sing. I don’t care if someone plays better than me, or sings better than me. I care about the simple joy I get from experiencing the process that is writing and performing my music.

People who write better than me exist, and I love listening to them, if their music is sincere and speaks to me. I learn from them, and who I am grows. I envy them, but only in the way a child envies an adult who can reach a door knob. I know I’ll grow in my own time to open the doors, and I love that.

I do, and I hope you understand what I am saying. You are clearly a smart individual who has made foolish mistakes, but mistakes are inevitable. Failure does not exist, only results. If you base your identity off what you are skilled at or not skilled at, you will always feel inferior. You must accept that you’re a human being, that you are one among many, and that you have a lot to offer, but so does everyone else. Whether you’re 5 years old, or 90 years old — you have something to share that will educate or illuminate something another did not know or had not experienced.

One day I was watching my nephew playing on the floor during a family gathering. He took the matchbox cars and “zooom zooomed” them, running them across the floor like bumper cars. I watched him carefully and asked him “What did you do yesterday?” — he then asked me “Why?” I said “Why not?” He laughed and continued to play.

I realized at that moment, that this child grasps the concept I’m sharing with you, better than many adults I know. The past is gone, along with our mistakes and our illusions of failure. We’re here now, and that is that.

He smiled and began crashing the cars into each other, watching as they spun and collided like pool balls. I asked him “What are you doing tomorrow?” And he said “I don’t know.”

Once again, illuminating a point which seriously consumes so many people. He’s uninterested in neither the past nor the future. He doesn’t know. Do you know? Do you have all the answers? Then you are incompetent. You are limited, finite, and bound by rules. You will never be more than the sum of what you are now at any given moment in your life.

Do you really want to live your life like you’re immortal or do you want to join us in enjoying your life, learning, and growing in relationships, and in your knowledge for the mere motivation of “because”. That’s “be-cause.”