Love your life, perfect your life
Before my father died,
he said the worse thing about growing old was that other man stopped seeing you as dangerous.
I’ve always remembered that, how being dangerous was sacred, a badge of honor.
You live your life by a code, a ethos. Every man does.
It’s your shoreline. It’s what guides you home. And trust me, you’re always trying to get home.
War is a country of will.
There is no room for sympathy.
If you are not willing to give up everything, you’re already lost.
Remember, you have warrior’s blood in your veins.
The code that made your father who he was is the same code that’ll make you a man he would admire,
respect. Put your pain in a box. Lock it down.
Like those people in the paintings your father liked, we are men made of box,
chambers of loss and triumph, of hurt and hope and love.
No one is stronger or more dangerous than a man who can harness his emotions, his past.
Use it as fuel, as ammunition, as ink to write the most important letter of your life.
Before he died,
your father asked me to give you this poem by Tecumseh.
I told him I’ll fold it into a paper airplane.
And, in any way, I guess that’s what I’m doing, sailing it from him to you.
Live your life that the fear of death,
Can never enter your heart
Trouble no one about his religion
Respect others and their views
And demand they respect yours
Love your life, perfect your life
Beautify all things in your life
Seek to make your life long and of service to your people.
When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death
So that when their time comes they weep and pray
For a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way.
Sing your death song.
And die like a hero going home.