You can let the world break you, or you can let it build you.

See, I've learned something along the way.

That pain can become power, fear can become fuel,

and rejection, if you're willing to look it in the eye,

it can become the spark that ignites a new beginning entirely.

The caveat is that it only happens, though,

if you stop seeing your setbacks as the end,

and you start seeing them as the beginning of something bigger.

There's an old story or anecdote that, I guess, in its beautiful simplicity, has stuck with me.

In this story, a farmer's donkey falls into a deep, dry well.

And obviously, it's stuck down there,

and the donkey's crying and yelling and hours pass,

and the farmer becomes aware,

and he's doing everything he can to get his donkey out of the well,

but it's just too deep, and he's too far down there.

And eventually, with no way out, you know, the well, but it's just too deep. He's too far down there. And eventually with no way out,

you know, the farmer has to make an awful decision, the hardest decision he could make. And he begins to shovel dirt into the well, thinking, well, I don't want him to suffer, right? So it's

time to put the donkey

to rest. But as he's doing this, something strange happens, right? As the dirt falls down the well

and on the donkey's back, the donkey doesn't lay down to die.

Shakes off the dirt and each time kind of steps up a little bit.

Shovelful after shovelful, he continues to shake off the dirt and step up.

...