Where There's A Will There's A Way

I was hanging out with a good friend the other day, and we started reminiscing about "the old days".

High school.

During the summer before my junior year of high school, my parents had a finished basement that my sister and I lived in.  2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, a living room, full kitchen, and a back door entrance so we didn't even have to go upstairs and see our parents to leave or enter the house, guests included.  Basically, we were two high school teenagers with our own apartment.

And there was only one word to describe that summer before junior year.

LEGENDARY.

I mean this to the point that my friends who I still talk to today still refer to it as "Mark's Basement Days".

For nearly 3 months, we partied EVERY NIGHT.

Now I'm sure some of you have had some wild party days, so I'm not going to go off on how my party days were harder than yours...but we partied hard.

So much so, that by the start of the school year, we managed to accumulate a total of 24 handles of liquor with NO repeat bottles, and 3 trash bags full of beer cans, which at 5 cents per can, made us $50. (read: 1000 cans collected.)

Sometimes it was just 5 or 6 of us, sometimes 10, sometimes more.  For my 17th birthday which was a week before school started, I asked a couple friends to come by and told them I was having a party.  This led to about 120 kids from my school showing up and many many stories I won't be sharing with you, probably ever.  What I can say though was that no one got hurt, arrested, or hospitalized, so good times overall.

But I tell you all this to ask you a question.

How the hell did we do it?

We were a group of teenagers, some with part-time jobs, some without, who no matter what, for 3 straight months always managed to pull together $30 for a bottle of liquor (or 2), a case of beer (or 2), and a tip for the guy who pushed grocery carts at the local Shoprite and would walk to the liquor store to buy us booze.

So the simple answer? We wanted it bad enough. No excuses.  We were all broke as hell, but somehow, some way, we always had enough to drink ourselves into oblivion.  There was no such thing as "Oh hey, everyone is broke so we're not going to do anything tonight." No. It just didn't happen.  We sacrificed things that weren't a priority.  Like proper nutrition ($1 McChickens for all!), our livers, and our brain cells.

So ask yourself, How badly do you want to live life on your own terms? And what excuses have you been telling yourself why you can't do it? Is it money? Is it time? I don't believe it. Why? Because if someone were to pull out a briefcase in front of you with $1 million in and and said "I'll give you this briefcase and everything in it if all you do is give me $20,000 and take a month off from work", I GUARANTEE you would find a way to pull it off.  You just have to want it bad enough.

My challenge for you today is to ask yourself "What kind of life do I want to live, and what do I have to do to get there?" And please, don't think small.  Be grand with your vision for yourself.  And don't let excuses and blame cloud your thoughts.  Take 100% responsibility and understand it's all a choice.

If a group of young, dumb, full of...pride teenagers can make it happen, trust me, so can you.

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Mark Lopez blogs about leadership and personal development in order to strengthen his own leadership skills.  As a Christian, father, husband, and CEO of his own life, Mark looks to empower others so they can lead lives of success, happiness, and personal fulfillment.  To learn more about how Mark can help you live on purpose, e-mail him at thatninjamark@yahoo.com or follow him onFacebook.