756,864,000 seconds, 12,614,400 minutes, 525,600 hours, 8,760 days… and 24 years.  Thats how long this guy has been, crawling, walking, running, and…..walking on this Earth.  Bare with me, this might be all over the place.

It’s hard to hold down what I have learned over the years so I will tell you what I have found to be true.  Life is different for everyone,  what works for one person, may not for the other and vice versa. Trying to emulate one person (say your hero or idol) is never going to work, instead take and steal from many people to create a person that is uniquely you. Play up your strengths and in doing that, find out what your weaknesses are; your weaknesses are what give this unique person you see in the mirror everyday.  Take time to listen to yourself. I’m not trying to be all introspective and hippy here, but seriously, take a second and talk to yourself.  Ask yourself questions, and answer them with the truth.  Please, if you do this out loud to yourself, do it in a room where no one else is.  I’m pretty sure they stopped burning witches at the stake, but I could be wrong. I digress.  Lose yourself in some good music and explore new kinds whenever you get a chance.  I have always found music to shake things loose in my head when I need it the most.  Be unpredictable, if you want to try something, try it. If you want to go somewhere, get in your car and go.  I’ve found this type of thinking to make me the most happy.  Don’t let anything hold you back.

The last thing I will leave you with is something I learned from the great Gary Vaynerchuk.  Do what you are passionate about.  If for one minute you are doing something that you don’t 100% love doing, even if it is just a 1% dislike, stop doing it.  Life is too short to do something that you dislike, even if its for one day.

The culmination or trial and error is what shapes me today and is what will shape me in the future.

-MattyV

There’s a trick to being whatever you want to be in life. It starts with the simple belief that you are what or who you say you are. It starts, like all faiths, with a belief – a belief predicated more on whimsy than reality. And you’ve gotta believe for everybody else, too – until you can show them proof. If you’re lucky, someone starts believing with you – first theoretically, then in practice. And two people believing are the start of a congregation. You build a congregation of believers and eventually you set out to craft a cathedral. Sometimes it’s just a church; sometimes it turns out to be a chapel. Folks who don’t build churches will try to tell you how you’re doing it wrong, even as your steeple breaks the clouds. Never listen.

~Kevin Smith