Choice, not chance, determines your destiny. It's up to you to decide what you are worth, how you matter, and how you make meaning in the world. No one else has your gifts--your set of talents, ideas, interests. You are an original. A masterpiece.
Interpretation
Our choices shape our future, highlighting our unique talents and worth.
This quote emphasizes the power of personal choice over random events in shaping one's life. It reminds us that our individual decisions define our self-worth and the unique contributions we bring to the world, encouraging us to recognize and celebrate our originality and inherent value.
In practice
During a motivational speech about personal development.
When you have cancer, it's like you enter a new time zone: the Cancer Zone. Everything in the Tropic of Cancer revolves around your health or your sickness. I didn't want my whole life to revolve around cancer. Life came first; cancer came second.
Greet every morning with open arms and say thanks every night with a full heart. Each day is a precious gift to be savored and used, not left unopened and hoarded for a future that may never come.
The only gift my dad ever bought me is still in my jewelry box. It died at 10 minutes to 11 decades ago, but the gold Caravelle watch keeps my dad alive. A watch isn't about keeping time. It's about stopping it.
Before I started chemotherapy treatments, I wrote down the best advice from doctors, family, friends, books, and survivors and created an 'Owner's Manual' to help me take care of myself. It would remind me that cancer is doable.
Some people hate funerals. I find them comforting. They hit the pause button on life and remind us that it has an end. Every eulogy reminds me to deepen my dash, that place on the tombstone between our birth and our death.
Cancer is messy and scary. You throw everything at it, but don't forget to throw love at it. It turns out that might be the best weapon of all.
Make voyages. Attempt them. There's nothing else.
You can wipe your feet on me, twist my motives around all you like, you can dump millstones on my head and drown me in the river, but you can’t get me out of the story. I’m the plot, babe, and don’t ever forget it.
Even in bad times, always say thank you. Whatever you are going through, God is using you to get through. God has already put a rainbow in the cloud.
Hope transforms pessimism into optimism. Hope is invincible.
We are in a world where people are understanding that athletes and entertainers are citizens too. Some of us want to leverage our platform for good, and I want to be someone who is thoughtful and real about trying to influence people in a way that will lead to healthier communities and a better nation.
Pray the largest prayers. You cannot think a prayer so large that God, in answering it, will not wish you had made it larger. Pray not for crutches but for wings.
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