Whoever it is that the twists and turns of fate have helped you to become, your story actually started exactly the same way everybody’s did.
All those years ago, you were nothing more than a tiny sperm cell swimming around inside your Dad. You measured just one-twentieth of a milimetre in length.
But you weren’t just any old sperm cell. You were actually… the best one. You must have been, or else don’t you think one of the others would have beaten you to your mother’s egg? That’s right – you beat every last one of them. You were number one.
And by the way, there weren’t just a few others competing with you – the average human male releases between 40 million and 1.2 billion sperm cells each time he… well, you know. If that’s not fierce competition, I don’t know what it is.
I only bring this to your attention to give you something to contemplate on your darker days. When you feel like a pretty rotten example of a human being, or you feel as though you just can’t measure up to what’s expected of you, or you feel inadequate in every conceivable way, or you feel like you’re nothing because you can’t afford this or you don’t deserve that…
…if you’re even breathing, if you even made it to the womb, you are a fucking champion!
So think about that next time you’re being uptight, next time the stakes feel too high, next time it seems reality is putting you in a corner…
You already won. Years ago. Being a sperm was the struggle. Life is the prize. What are you going to do with it?
It’s just a ride.
But we always kill the good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok … But it doesn’t matter, because it’s just a ride.
And we can change it any time we want. It’s only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. Just a simple choice, right now, between fear and love.
The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off.
The eyes of love instead see all of us as one.
Bill Hicks