I’ve heard people say, “every day is a new beginning” for as long as I can remember, but just like anything that I hear over and over again, it begins to lose meaning. Is this just another cliché and cheesy statement or does it hold something that everyone longs for? Truth.

One of my favorite comedians has a bit where he explains how his parents, just like most, told him that he could be whatever he wanted when he grew up. They told him there were no limits to what he could achieve. Now that he is a grown adult, his argument against his parents is that if every child ever born could grow up to be whatever they wanted, the world would be filled with ninjas, princesses, and quarterback throwing footballs to pirates.

As absurd as that idea may sound, something about it resonates within me. As we grow older our passions change and our goals shift, usually transforming us into something that we never could have dreamed up at the age of 5 years old. What happens is that we realize we are not an astronaut, professional athlete, or in my case, we are not an FBI agent named Fox Mulder who works on paranormal cases called the X-Files.

So we settle.

We settle to just get a job that can pay the bills and support the family while not giving us too much of a headache day in and day out. However, the fact of the matter is that we all still have passions but more times than not, the drive to push towards those passions disappear with our childhood. Luckily for us, every day is a spring-cleaning day. We wake up every day with the chance to clean up all the blemishes that we have created and pushed us further away from our passions that we may have had when we were in grade school that we wanted to pursue. Better yet, we have the chance to follow a dream that we maybe have just thought up the night before. Whatever the case is, we have the opportunity to get back to the fearless, passionate, childlike mentality that we all once possessed and do something special with ourselves.

So no, its not likely that you can be a ninja or a princess for a living, but what you can do is work towards what you care about and do not want to be missing from your life. My challenge to you is to put aside those fears that are making you settle. Work towards what makes you happy, no matter what could happen. Today is your spring-cleaning day.

The Authenticity Project