I Can't Make This Up: Life Lessons

by Kevin Hart

At every moment in life, there is a fork in the path you are on. And you can choose to go right or you can choose to go left. Every right you take leads you closer to your best possible destiny; every left leads you further away from it. These forks are not just decisions that lead to actions, like saying yes to a job offer, but thoughts that lead to beliefs, like blaming your father for ruining your life. 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. Even if you are struck by lightning and injured, you made choices that led you to that spot at that particular time—and you get to choose how you feel about it afterward. You can be angry at the bad luck that you got struck or grateful for the good luck that you survived.

It’s easy to complain about your life—how tough it is, how unfair it is, how stressful it is, how everyone else has it much better. But if you step into the life of someone you envy for just a day, you’ll discover that everyone has their own problems, and they’re usually worse than yours. Because your problems are designed specifically for you, with the specific purpose of helping you grow.

The lesson that I drew from this at the time was that I should have tried harder. I should have taken school more seriously; I should have had a plan like everyone else. I still feel that way. But there’s an additional lesson that I get from it now: It’s never too late to start caring. 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 is just one thing that tomorrow demands of you to make this happen: that you never stop believing in your power to create a better day. This way, when your best possible future comes looking for you—almost always at a time and in a place you least expect it—you will be able to recognize

its face and respond to its call.