Success Is F#@$ing Up On Your Own Terms

✨💖✨Shout out to the late night stars burning all the way through the early morning✨💖✨

Such an elusive thing, this chase for success... the grind, the lines we're not supposed to cross... The most solid piece of it I can grasp is that success is a feeling, and there is no way to feel it until you understand what it means to you, personally.

How do you define Success?

I find myself in agreement with the wise words of Sr. Del Toro in this meme created by yours truly, from a personal candid photo op depicting core members of my favorite Late Night Early Morning Burners crew.

I offer this concept up for you to use like I do, as a reminder to self:

What are you waiting for? It's now or never.

What are you aiming for? It's up to you to make it better.

And while I fuck up on my own terms in this trial and error quest towards my guess and check success I do my best to stay wild and get out more with my best successful stoners, because even if we are all loners, I reckon we can do it on our own, together.

💥 A sweet reminder with this one:

💥Roll with the punches, take the hit. Wake up stronger, and laugh about it. 💥🌋💥

Sunday Funday Flashback to the utterly most awesome Last Aid walk about performance for only the most munted (Brit speak for the extremely intoxicated) final day-ers at Glade Festival, whom First Aid had long passed up on this summer afternoon in Norwich...
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We Zombie Doctors and Mad Ratchet Nurses do our best to serve the mouth-watering reminders by clearing the front-of-stage-crowds with our siren and cart;
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rounding up the most final festie day fizzled fools and laying them out flat on the grass in front of their laughing friends, to test their vitals;
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Next, tweeze their bits and gauze their festivity inflicted injuries (mostly consisting of their booze sweat soaked pride at this point)
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and carry them away on our stretcher a good distance from the crowd to drop them out on the grass, for some prescriptive clarity ....

✨The wordy wisdom quoted above comes from author Austen Kleon, whose zine stylized pocket sized tomes teach from the title, all the way through:

✨Steal Like An Artist ✨
and
✨Show Your Work ✨

✨It's a hard grind all the way to greatness, So be your own best nightmare, and take the hit✨

Two things are certain in this consensual reality we share:

✨One Day you were born.✨
and
✨One Day you will die.✨

Don't worry, I'm sitting next to you in the same boat, clinking these two coins for the Ferryman in my sweaty palms...

Aaand guess what?! We get to decide what we do with the time in between these two fated days.

On our way, we may as well bump a soundtrack worth getting down to, like the original Atmosphere of the Rhymesayers slay fest tune the pictured quote comes from...

When I'm feeling a little bit extra, I like to lean into the spin, and ask myself a handful of the uncomfortable questions:

What are you doing with your time, Stirling?

Where are you headed? In the short term? What about the long term?

As in, if I don't readjust my trajectory in this exact moment, where does this path lead with each step? And where will I end up lying when my feet give out?

Am I remembering to enjoy the journey? How do I feel about it RIGHT NOW?

Am I taking my time? Who am I giving it to?

Or am I just letting it slip by?

Is this next action moving toward creating the life I want to live RIGHT NOW?

What am I waiting for?

What am I grateful for? And has it happened yet?

Am I living a life worth dying for?

Because certainly, I will die living this life.

Is it worth it?

<3 @Stirling