I Don’t Believe In A Lot But I Do Believe In Us

Life is hard. Let’s face it. You think you’re doing great and you feel you’re accomplished at your age (you probably are very accomplished), but then you see that someone who is around the same age has not only bought her dream house, married her dream man, and retired her parents (she’s also a famous Beauty Blogger, role model, advocate for change…see Nabela Noor), and you start to feel like wow, you actually haven’t done much.

That’s false. You have done and accomplished a lot, and you should be proud of what you have achieved. It’s not that you haven’t done much…you’re just now realizing it’s not enough. That funny feeling in your stomach you get when you see someone succeeding beyond where you are, that’s not jealousy (if it is, it shouldn’t be), that’s not a ‘woe is me, I’m inadequate’.

No, that feeling is the universe letting you know that you are meant to do something greater with your life and you are feeling the need to grow.

I told my brother about Nabela and expressed my awe at all that she and many others have accomplished at an incredibly young age. He said it was “sheer luck”. I beg to differ. I don’t believe in luck. Luck is for action movies like Mission Impossible and for the lottery. Luck is for people who sit around waiting for good things to fall into their lap. Luck is for people who have a sense of entitlement and expect the universe to give them, well…the universe. Luck is when you were in high school and you genuinely had no idea what the answer was on the pop quiz so you just eenie meenie miny mo-ed it and you ended up being right. That is just sheer luck.

Nabela Noor didn’t become the Nabela with “sheer luck”. She dreamed big. She worked hard with incredible effort, time, and dedication to her goals and her purpose. She did not let fear stop her, she let it fuel her. She took the cards she had in her hand and worked with them. She worked with them so damn brilliantly and strategically that she got even better cards and became the Nabela we know today.

I don’t believe in “sheer luck”. I don’t believe in sitting around waiting for your destiny to fall from the sky and straight into your expectant lap. I don’t believe in witnessing someone’s success and moping about it when you could be motivated by it. I don’t believe in waiting for life to happen to you. I don’t believe in chance, I believe in creating our own fate.

I believe in us.

I believe in the dreamers who not only dream but they DO. I believe that we will break boundaries and crush obstacles to discover and fulfill our purpose. I believe that for every door that shuts in our face, another one open with true grit and determination. I believe that despite every person who has said we can’t do it, that we won’t make it, that we aren’t enough, we will continue forward with our goals in sight and prove to them all that we are not ones to be doubted.

I believe in the Immigrants who left everything they know to come to America with visions of the American Dream dancing in their eyes. I believe in their blood, sweat, and tears, so many tears. I believe in their strength to battle this world for the betterment of their children’s lives. I believe in those advocating for positive change. I believe in their power to make a difference and their never-ending mission to be a light to the world.

I believe in the glint that’s in your eye when you know you’ve found your calling. I believe in the curve of your smile when you get that promotion, you make that deal, you open your business, you close on that dream house, you launch your non-profit, you find the love of your life, whatever it may be. I believe in the joy you feel after all the heartache, confusion, and disappointments. I believe in the cries that wrack your body because you are just that astounded that you made it past hurdle after hurdle and have reached that dream that seemed so far off in the distance.

I don’t believe in “oh if it happens it happens”. I believe in us.

I believe in those who take a good long look at their cards, then a look out towards the point in the distance where they want to be, they square their shoulders back, stand stall, take a deep breath, and say,

“I will make this happen. Maybe it won’t happen today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday.”