“…I don’t understand. After all of this… nothing to show for it. God damn.”

“How’s that?”

“Oh- I’m sorry, I guess I was talking to myself.”

“Nah, don’t be sorry- What’s going? I know its not a great thing to tell a person but… you look tired. Not in a what happened to you kind of way- you look good- you just look tired.”

“Hah, well, yeah… I don’t take offense to that. I am tired.”

“Okay, hopefully tired for a good reason?”

“Ya know what, for a lot of years I would have said yes. I would have said I just accomplished this thing I was working on and I’m tired, but proud and accomplished.”

“But not this time? Not at the end of an accomplishment?”

“Oh no. I am. I am at the end of many accomplishments. A few of them quite remarkable, some even unbelievable.”

“But no pride this time?”

“Oh… you don’t need, I mean, you don’t have to do that.”

“Do what? You can talk to me. Come on.”

“Well…okay, I guess the problem is that I have done things; far more than my fair share. And even with all of them, with all the things I’ve done, all the things I’ve tried, the well above-average effort I’ve put in- I’ve got nothing to show for it all.”

“Nothing?! That can’t be true. I mean, that seems highly unlikely…”

“Of course not nothing, but I guess I thought there would be more success to it all at this point. I know that I’m very good at what I do. I swing big. I don’t shy away from sharing it. I don’t shy away from helping others through it. I don’t go more than two or three days, at the most, without working on it- though, honestly, its more like every single day. For years now. For more than a decade in some way or another. And I’m finally feeling very tired from it all. Feeling the the toll its taken. Feeling that its all been in pursuit of… I’m grasping for what…”

“Do you have friends?”

“Sure, I like to think I have quite a few actually, what does that have to do with…”

“What did you have for breakfast this morning?”

“What? I guess I made scrambled eggs and had a coconut water.”

“Oh, tropical H2O- exotic. So, I’m assuming you woke up warm in a bed with a roof overhead? You went to a job that pays the bills? Your hands work? You walked here on your own two feet?”

“Okay, okay, pal I get it. Yes I did and do all of those things. And its not that I don’t think about that or I’m not grateful for it, so don’t start in with that.”

“This isn’t a gratitude thing. It sounds stupid but just take a minute…Seriously. Take a moment- don’t compare it to what other people do or do not have, that’s a negative sum game. Compare it to how far you’ve come. To what you’ve built. Compare it to just yourself. If a ten year younger version of you walked through the door right now how would they feel about your progress? How would they feel about the stories you could tell them?”

“Hah… it would blow their mind. Without a doubt.”

“Not everyone can say that. In the end, which is truly unavoidable, what will you leave behind? Nothing? A legacy? Things built? Bills paid? People helped? Moments savored? A life lived in pursuit of something? Even if you never quite get ahold of what you want, would you even know if you did? Or would your ideas have shifted and changed and your goalpost gotten further and further out? You know it would. Because it always has. Because you, ten-years-ago, would be so impressed with you right now they wouldn’t be able to speak. You can’t take a single thing with you from this life so why not leave it all on the table? Try your damndest. Get knocked down. Exhaust yourself. Cry. Be directionless. Feel bad. Feel awful. Feel terrible! That’s all fine- but get back up. And try once more. Always, try once more. Because that is what will make all the difference. Because you ten years from now will remember this moment; and most likely laugh. ”

“…you’re right. And I needed that. Thank you.”

“I know you did.”

“How? How did you know any of that?”

“I knew it because I always have. I always do. I answered because I always will- because I am you.”