Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of our lives.
Your shot- no, our shot, at redemption.
Failure has come many times. But they are trivial compared to the ones faced by the explorers before us. They are great not because they have never failed, but because they have never allowed failure to keep them down.
It is a difficult path – rarely trod upon. The forest is dense to say the least. We have not forgotten our parang, but we musn’t forget to keep it sharp (metaphor, swinging a machete around campus would give off the wrong signals).
It is nevertheless, wild and perilous. We should not hope to tame it, but rather, to befriend it, to aid it, to allow it to save and guide us in turn.
Do not ever forget our morals; they will be our map. Though they may change in time, we shall do our utmost best to uphold them. For they are guidelines written in a state of calmness. We are not always calm, so just… Ah fuck la, just follow them okay..!
Always be alert. Never be complacent. The forest is massive, and we can never hope to know everything about it. Always be willing to learn, experience, suffer, enjoy and regret. A good explorer, adventurer, story-teller, always hopes to inspire wonder, shock – anything unexpected – to the audience. The best way to inspire these emotions is for us to experience them ourselves.
Most importantly; everyone has a story. Never be too quick to pass judgment – to jump to conclusions – to dismiss someone as uninteresting. Engage everyone, great storytellers are great appreciators; and we must never close ourselves off to stories – old or new. As of this writing, this is our weakest attribute, our Archilles’ heel (not that we’re Archilles; but self-motivation never hurts does it); remember what The Beatles had to say about this:
“Jojo was a man who thought he was a loner, but he knew he couldn’t last.”
Beware not just of ignorance, but of anger as well. Remember how those red flares blind us when we get mad? Never did they work out right eh? Conflicts come and go like the wind, but the bridges that are temporarily rocked can stand hold forever if we want them to. Never cut loose a bridge in anger; we never know when we might want to cross it again.
But enough nagging. We have failed many times before. This is the one time we can wander into the forest without anyone telling us not to.
Alright, they might. But they can’t actually stop us.
I am you, you are me. You’re quite possibly the only person I can truly trust – and I, the only one you can trust.
We haven’t got talent, but we’ve got empty-headed stubborn-ness, and that’s bound to take us somewhere dagnabit!
