There are warehouses full of dreams un-lived. Piled high to the ceiling in vanishing rows, you can feel the emptiness as each vision fades. First it loses its color. Then its sharpness. Eventually a gap on the shelf is all that’s left. Until it’s replenished with another dream that was over before it began.
One of my favorite presidents is Theodore Roosevelt. He was a magnetic man in a time of equal magnetism. Reading a collection of his writings somewhere above the Rocky Mountains, I heard him whisper this:
“The joy of living is his who has the heart to demand it.”
Often when you hear it said that someone was “making demands” you wonder whether the person has the right to do so. It sounds like a gussied up barbarism.
“Who is this knave with the pepper in his stepper conjuring demands so willy-nilly?”
Now you know why it’s so difficult to raise your hand and say, “this is what I want.”
You and I have been raised to believe that good things come to good people so just keep on pushing politely. This works sometimes. The sad part is when it doesn’t. Sometimes you have to stop what you’re doing and declare what it is that you’re after. The timing of it is important but perhaps not in the way you might think. The time to declare what you’re after is the moment you discover what that is.
You will never have more time than you have right now.
Think about that.
Perhaps a demanding posture isn’t such a bad idea.
I’d propose it’s okay to demand worthy things.
For yourself and those around you.
What would your life look like if you started making some demands?
What would you give your life’s energy to?
What would you be willing to accept of yourself and others in its pursuit?
What if life was a game you played to win?
(The kind of winning that doesn’t require everyone else to lose.)
The joy of living is his who has the heart to demand it.
TR was right.
He still is.
Do you have the heart to prove it?
