“Don’t raise a glass. Raise your standard. Be bolder. Be weirder. Be the version of yourself that scares people a little. Because Val wouldn’t want your tears. He’d want your truth.” — Jason Egenberg
Of the tributes to Val Kilmer that I read over the last few days, Egenberg’s resonated with me the most. The entire post is worth seeking out, but those last few lines are poetry to this blogger. Surely I’ve written each of those lines at one point or another over the years, if only to poke and prod at myself a little more to go and do and be a bolder version of myself. Maybe that resonates with you too.
Spinning around in circles
Living it day to day
And still twenty four hours, maybe sixty good years
It’s still not that long a stay
— Jimmy Buffett, Cowboy in the Jungle
Val Kilmer died young at 65. Jimmy Buffett died at 76, which feels less old than it once did. There was a time when I wouldn’t have thought 65 or 76 was young at all, but try on a decade or five and see how it fits. The fact of the matter is, it’s not that long a stay for all of us. We may never be or want to be famous, but we ought to work to be memorable. At least to those who matter most in this world.
The thing is, it’s hard to be a version of yourself that scares people a little when there’s just so much to do to keep things on track. We all have people who count on us to show up and to be predictable. Chances are we either owe them money or a return on the investment they’ve made in us. Who are we to ignore that? What of the return on the investment we’ve made in ourselves? As with any sound lifetime investment strategy, we must pay ourselves first.
It’s really not that long a stay. Imagine one day when we pass on and walk into a bar (in the afterlife there are spirits, aren’t there?) where Val Kilmer and Jimmy Buffett are chatting at a table near the infinity pool (naturally). Fame doesn’t matter a lick when we’re dead, but staying true to oneself resonates. Can we have a seat at that table? Be yourself. That’s all that they would ask of us. So long as we kept raising our standard.
