I Can't Make This Up: Life Lessons

by Kevin Hart

Life is a story. It’s full of chapters. And the beauty of life is that not only do you get to choose how you interpret each chapter, but your interpretation writes the next chapter. It determines whether it’s comedy or tragedy, fairy tale or horror story, rags-to-riches or riches-to-rags.

You can’t control the events that happen to you, but you can control your interpretation of them. So why not choose the story that serves your life the best?

Your life today is the sum total of your choices. So if you’re not happy with it, look back at your choices and start making different ones.

You can be angry at the bad luck that you got struck or grateful for the good luck that you survived.

You are somebody. You matter. And no one is allowed to take away your right to your property, your right to your safety, or your right to be yourself. Those are things that should be defended.

Because your problems are designed specifically for you, with the specific purpose of helping you grow.

Having nothing to prove is the most freeing thing in the world.

Because shoulder-shrugging is different than not caring: It’s having perspective. It’s looking at a bigger picture instead of being reactive. By having that outlook, I was eventually able to understand that if someone was making fun of my height or clothing, they weren’t making fun of who I was. Was what they were saying true? Yes. Did it make me inadequate as a human being? No. Did it really matter then? Hell no.

You want to know what that secret is? It’s two words: Have fun.

My future was out there. It was just waiting for me to find it. And the challenge was not to give up on myself just because it seemed like everyone else was pulling ahead of me—and leaving me further and further behind in the months that followed. That’s the test that each of us faces in life: Can you fail and still be strong? Can you not fit in and still accept yourself? Can you lose everything and still keep searching? Can you be in the dark and still believe in the light?

Because no matter how low you go and how lost you feel, there is always tomorrow. And tomorrow just may be the day when you get lifted up and find your way.

There’s no need to seek external approval when you already have internal approval.