You are great. Already. Whether you realize it or not. Whether anybody else realizes it or not. And it’s not because you launched an iPhone app, or finished school a year early, or bought yourself a sweet-ass boat. These things do not define greatness.
You are already great because in the face of endless confusion and certain death, you continue to choose what to give a fuck about and what not to. This mere fact, this simple optioning for your own values in life, already makes you beautiful, already makes you successful, and already makes you loved. Even if you don’t realize it. Even if you’re sleeping in a gutter and starving.
You too are going to die, and that’s because you too were fortunate enough to have lived. You may not feel this. But go stand on a cliff sometime, and maybe you will.
Bukowski once wrote, “We’re all going to die, all of us. What a circus! That alone should make us love each other, but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by life’s trivialities; we are eaten up by nothing.”
Looking back on that night, out by that lake, when I watched my friend Josh’s body getting fished out of the lake by paramedics. I remember staring into the black Texas night and watching my ego slowly dissolve into it. Josh’s death taught me much more than I initially realized. Yes, it helped me to seize the day, to take responsibility for my choices, and to pursue my dreams with less shame and inhibition.
But these were side effects of a deeper, more primary lesson. And the primary lesson was this: there is nothing to be afraid of. Ever. And reminding myself of my own death repeatedly over the years—whether it be through meditation, through reading philosophy, or through doing crazy shit like standing on a cliff in South Africa—is the only thing that has helped me hold this realization front and center in my mind. This acceptance of my death, this understanding of my own fragility, has made everything easier—untangling my addictions, identifying and confronting my own entitlement, accepting responsibility for my own problems—suffering through my fears and uncertainties, accepting my failures and embracing rejections—it has all been made lighter by the thought of my own death. The more I peer into the darkness, the brighter life gets, the quieter the world becomes, and the less unconscious resistance I feel to, well, anything.
I sit there on the Cape for a few minutes, taking in everything. When I finally decide to get up, I put my hands behind me and scoot back. Then, slowly, I stand. I check the ground around me—making sure there’s no errant rock ready to sabotage me. Having recognized that I am safe, I begin to walk back to reality—five feet, ten feet—my body restoring itself with each step. My feet become lighter. I let life’s magnet draw me in.
As I step back over some rocks, back to the main path, I look up to see a man staring at me. I stop and make eye contact with him.
“Um. I saw you sitting on the edge over there,” he says. His accent is Australian. The word “there” rolls out of his mouth awkwardly. He points toward Antarctica.
“Yeah. The view is gorgeous, isn’t it?” I am smiling. He is not. He has a serious look on his face.
I brush my hands off on my shorts, my body still buzzing from my surrender. There’s an awkward silence.
The Aussie stands for a moment, perplexed, still looking at me, clearly thinking of what to say next. After a moment, he carefully pieces the words together.
“Is everything okay? How are you feeling?”
I pause for a moment, still smiling. “Alive. Very alive.”
His skepticism breaks and reveals a smile in its place. He gives a slight nod and heads down the trail. I stand above, taking in the view, waiting for my friends to arrive on the peak.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book began as a big, messy thing and required more than just my own hands to chisel something comprehensible out of it.
First and foremost, thank you to my brilliant and beautiful wife, Fernanda, who never hesitates to say no to me when I need to hear it most. Not only do you make me a better person, but your unconditional love and constant feedback during the writing process were indispensable.
To my parents, for putting up with my shit all these years and continuing to love me anyway. In many ways, I don’t feel as though I fully became an adult until I understood many of the concepts in this book. In that sense, it’s been a joy to get to know you as an adult these past few years. And to my brother as well: I never doubt the existence of mutual love and respect between us, even if I sometimes get butt-hurt that you don’t text me back.
To Philip Kemper and Drew Birnie—two big brains that conspire to make my brain appear much larger than it actually is. Your hard work and brilliance continue to floor me.
To Michael Covell, for being my intellectual stress test, especially when it comes to understanding psychological research, and for always challenging me on my assumptions. To my editor, Luke Dempsey, for mercilessly tightening the screws on my writing, and for possibly having an even fouler mouth than I do. To my agent, Mollie Glick, for helping me define the vision for the book and pushing it much farther into the world than I ever expected to see it go. To Taylor Pearson, Dan Andrews, and Jodi Ettenburg, for their support during this process; you three kept me both accountable and sane, which are the only two things every writer needs.
And finally, to the millions of people who, for whatever reason, decided to read a potty-mouthed asshole from Boston writing about life on his blog. The flood of emails I’ve received from those of you willing to open up the most intimate corners of your life to me, a complete stranger, both humbles me and inspires me. At this point in my life, I’ve spent thousands of hours reading and studying these subjects. But you all continue to be my true education. Thank you.