It’s not every day a seventeen-year-old guy is the one to proclaim, “You don’t have to find out you’re dying to start living.”
This type of belief typically comes from someone much more experienced – someone who has complained a decent amount of times about how bad life stinks, or how they wish they had something different than whatever happens to be sitting right in front of them. Then, some experience or incident finally makes them realize that it’s not always about what you don’t have at any given moment – it’s about living your life with what you do have.
Adam Mordecai, a curator for Upworthy.com, shared Zach Sobiech’s story a couple of months back. Zach passed away in May of this year, and even though I came across this story without the intention of watching the video (it’s a little more than 20 minutes long), I couldn’t help but be immediately intrigued and very deeply moved by Zach’s story the minute I hit the play button.
I’ll share a couple of major takeaways here in case you don’t have time to watch the video, and hopefully you’ll at least see that there is no better time to start than today.
Something Zach said in his video that really touched me is “What makes [me] happy is seeing someone else smile because [I] put it there. That’s what’s awesome about living in this world – is you can help people.” This type of mentality is not only inspiring, but it’s also the exact mentality of someone who will succeed at whatever it is they decide to do. Building your dream isn’t about solely satisfying yourself. It’s about the effect it can have on those around you that makes it successful – that makes it meaningful.
I also couldn’t help but think of how amazing Zach was for just starting to do what he believed in and what he was passionate about, which was music. He didn’t make excuses for why he wasn’t writing songs or playing the guitar – he just did it. Even though he had cancer standing in his way, Zach believed that “You can either sit in your basement and wait, or you can get out there and do some crazy stuff.” No one can predict the future. All we have is today.
Zach had a passion for music and for making those around him happy. In the midst of a tragic situation, he found strength to follow his passion and his dreams. Before he passed away, Zach achieved his dream of writing a song, that was also produced, for his family to remember him by: Clouds.
Zach’s tear-filled goodbye should give us all inspiration to live life now, and to realize that there is no better time to start working towards our dreams than today.
