I’ve been waiting a while to write this post. It’s for everyone who’s reaslly getting put through the washer at the moment and who’s sought me out today to allow me to tell them not to give up. This is for Kel, Em, Faz and Jenny.

F4R34NEH says:
how can u inspire others when ur feeling the opposite?

It is the *only* time you can inspire others. Only at the moment we are weakest can others know it to be real and know we are genuine in what we say and think. Everything else is potentially fake and just happy talk. It’s easy to talk and a hell of a lot harder to live out what comes from your head and mouth. Blood, sweat and tears are real. Winners over circumstance have true vitality and are the masters of their destiny we can believe, touch and feel.

I’ve learned that what St Paul the Apostle wrote is true: patience breeds perseverance, which brings character. And out of character comes hope. But character brings the light of hope for others more than just for you. Your character, beauty and strength lights up the world for others so they can see the way. Hope is so fragile but so powerful - light a small candle or a precious stone glimmering in a mountain of sand. It can lift mountains. It can refresh the soul and charge the spirit. Your strength and beauty is a light for others in their darkness.

I write this in my own darkness. It is right now we own, and right now that is ours. It isn’t the moment on a glorious stage where we stand in the adulation of the masses with our cute catchphrases and motivational talk. It is right now, in the darkness, where no-one is looking. Only now do we find out who we are and what we are capable of. We survive when all else is lost, and we do what we never thought we could ever do. All you have to do is be there. As the curtains draw across you and the walls tower menacingly above you, there is hope. It is inside you, and inside everyone else who is just as scared. Death has no power over it, neither does fear. It may be small, but it is invincible.

You are going to do what you have to do. You can do it. I believe in you. You have survived waves and waves of painful chaos that tried to break your back and failed, even though you were smashed down to your limits. But your limits grew stronger and your heart deeper. Every time you were stabbed in the chest, you went futher into that darkness and conquered a small part of it when you never thought you could. You took it and you withstood the onslaught.

I know you’re tired of fighting. I know you’re sad and weary and the road never seems to end. It should all be so much easier and faster than this. But you are so tired that you don’t realise just how fast you’re going, and your eyes aren’t capable of seeing any further than what’s around you. Over that hill is hope. The fight in you to put one foot in front of the other is hope for someone else. When your body is tired your mind will carry you, and when you your mind is tired your body will carry you. When both are tired, the love of those around you will always carry you. Your love carries people when they are too tired.

And it’s all worth it for that moment - the second you feel the water rush over you when what you wanted has arrived and succeeded. All the pain vanishes and melts away when it’s there. There is no pain, no tiredness and no adversity that can destroy hope, even when it is so small. All your mistakes mean nothing. Every time you hurt, longed and were on your knees in despair can no longer hurt you. It is always at the moment you least expect and is beautiful in its simplicity. And it is over that hilltop, and you will find it. It will find you. All you need to do is keep going and you will get there.

The world can and does change. You can change it if that is your will. You may think you are just too small and too insignificant to do anything at all and its all out of your control. But the world has only ever been changed by one person at a time, ever. It is the only way it changes. One person turns something around and the ripples are felt everywhere. There is no person who is alone and ineffectual on this planet. And everyone who has ever given their all to something never regretted putting it all on the line as the act itself is powerful enough. They all felt like giving up, just as you do. The moment they were 30 seconds before the finish line they finally had enough. But it was that 1%, that hope, that pushed them past. Only at the most desperate moments do we realise where we are and how far we’ve come, and why it is so important to push those dragging feet the last yards.

But what does it mean to you? There is no-one like you who has ever been born, and never will again. Only you can change your world, and the world of those around you. It is in this moment where you can do it. This moment will only happen once before it is gone to the next one. Eventually they form a chain that makes history. Your life is a chain of moments that are yours - moments that are unique and will never happen again. Now is your vindication. Now is what you must conquer before you can fight the next. There is no dress rehearal - this is it. You have to live inside it, right now. Feel it, fight it, adsorb it, consume it and breathe it out.

Will you make that decision not to give in? I know you’re scared. Don’t be afraid. Don’t give in to it even if it feels you are about to drown. Stand there and let it break over you. It will attack you again and again, and each time you set the bar for how you handle it the next time. Fear is a slave, not a master, and it’s an arrogant one. You can do it if you fight for it, even with what little strength you have. You may be small. You may be lost. You may be worried. But you can do it. You can fight for it. You have fought before, and you will fight again. You will fight tomorrow, and the day after that, but only one day at a time. You have no idea just how resilient and extraordinary you can be. If you walked into your fear, you would find out.

What you do will live on; it will echo around you in the hearts and minds of those you know. Decades pass but memories live on. When you can’t work out what the hell is going on, it is one of the most important periods in your life. The world can wait. There is always more than this, and will find it. The journey is long but you are equipped - you are loved, you are strong and you have what it takes. Nothing can stop the will of a person who is ready to go past what they know, and more has been created by those who didn’t know they couldn’t do it than by anyone else. Fall and you get up. Trip and you re-balance. Get winded and you recover your breath.

What can harm you? Can what hasn’t happened push you over? Can what isn’t real yet make demands of you? Who has the say as to whether it wins? These things may threaten you, punch you, drain you and worry you so your body trembles, but they have to have your permission. You will stand your ground and face it down. You will ride out and meet it instead of running away. And they will all see the courage and the drive in your face as you bite down and stare.  You are going to focus, clench your fist and pull in your breath ready to be counted and be everything that the battles over your life have made you.

Do it because you think you can’t. Do it so you can tell your children. But most of all, do it to give hope to others - those you haven’t met yet or you can’t see looking on at you. So your heartbeat is so loud it can be heard over the droning white noise of the high street. To confound, surprise and amaze all those who have an idea of you in their head that you’re not enough. Sitck your middle finger up, cut out the cancerous lies you believe and dive in even if you don”t know you’ll make it back. No-one else will because they are too scared, but you’re going to because they need to be set free. Take responsibility for their futures too, and give them hope. Show them someone did it once, and they are not alone.

I feel lost, and my head is in my hands. But i won’t give up. I won’t give in. Even if they steal the last breath from me, it will be carrying the words FUCK YOU I AM NEVER GIVING UP. Right to the last second and past it. Your life is not your own, it is the memories of others and the wisdom for those who come after you.  All we have is this moment, and whether we own it. It is mine. I decide who and what this moment will be. You can take everything i have, but you will never steal the things that are bigger than me - my hope, my vision, my will and my passion.  There is no thief who can run away with it and no bomb big enough to blast through it. Because i decide whether it lives or dies, and i alone.

You can hurt me, but i’ll come back up with a bloodied fist. You can push me, suffocate me, drain me, and try to capture me. But in me a fire burns that is stronger than any weapon you have or any force you know. Something that burns with intensity of a violent hosue blaze that sucks up more oxygen than is available and can’t be stopped. And its a fire that burns for every time i’ve been lost and hopeless; every time i’ve been let down or betrayed; every second i have lost and every moment that passed me by; every fear, every nightmare, every tear and every pulse of my tiny heartbeat.

And when its dark all around and there is no way out, look to me as i’ll burn away for you when you can’t. I will shine a light and hold you up when you can’t life your own body to take another step. I will be there. I will fight for you no matter how long it takes. No matter how long that journey, no matter how dark it gets, and no matter how bad the storm is, for every second i’m alive there will be a fire burning in me to tear through the walls, the obstacles and the darkness you are too scared or tire to face. If no-one else, i will be there. I give you my word i will never give up. I swear to you that i will never, ever lose my footing or my ground. This life is ours, and we can break the rules we set when we need to, as those rules are just markers someone weaker than us set a long time ago.

Feel where you are now. Right now. Is this yours or someone else’s? Stumble around in the dark and you will find me there, with you. If you can’t go on, i can, and i will, with you in my arms. For when you only see one pair of footprints, that is because i carried you.

“The universe is so vast and ageless that the life of one man can only be justified by the measure of his sacrifice.”

RAF Pilot

“It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, “Always do what you are afraid to do.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson