“Cogito ergo sum”

Perhaps most of us are not familiar with this philosophical Latin statement proposed by Descartes. In simple English, it means, “I think, therefore I am”. Of course, when he proposed it, he meant for it as a way of proving one’s existence in a way where “I am thinking, therefore the me that is doing the thinking must exist”. Get it? Good, neither do I.

Of course, most laymen, like myself, often confuse Descarte’s statement with something along the line of our state of awesomeness such as “if I think I am great, then I am great”. Well, like me, you must have confused Descartes with Henry Ford.

Now, Henry Ford, being a great man that he is, is often quoted as saying “whether you think you can, or you can’t — you’re right.”

What he simply meant is that your state of awesomeness, is dependent, entirely on you. You are responsible for how great you want to be. Of course a statement like this has to come with a disclaimer. Simply believing that you are awesome does not necessarily make you so. You will need to sweat it out, envisioning that awesomeness as the end state of your perspiration. This is summed up by the legendary rock-band Kiss in their gospel of ‘God Gave Rock and Roll to You,’ which goes something like:

“…if you wanna be a singer or play guitar, man you gotta sweat or you won’t get far…you can take a stand or you can compromise, you can work real hard or just fantasize, but you don’t start livin’ till you realize…”

So there you have it, if you want to be awesome, go be awesome, if you have a dream, you gotta protect it.

I will finish with a quote from “The Pursuit of Happyness” in a scene where Chris Gardner tells his son to not let anyone tell him he can’t do it:

“Don’t ever let somebody tell you… You can’t do something. Not even me. All right? You got a dream… You gotta protect it. People can’t do somethin’ themselves, they wanna tell you you can’t do it. If you want somethin’, go get it.”

Period.