Rights’ are ‘privileges,’ and if I am arrogant enough to demand the former without respecting the latter I will lose both.

Starting over begins when I develop a reawakened appreciation for what I already have, a renewed recognition of what I’ve recklessly forsaken, a rehabilitated understanding that I foolishly do both of those things, and a revitalized commitment to live the rest of my life never doing either of them again.

True greatness rests in seeing life as a gift and then treating it that way. And if a person can do both of those, then they are truly great. If they cannot, then to think that they are great is to be greatly mistaken.

I’m owed nothing, but I’ve been gifted with everything. As such, I owe everything the commitment that I will never find myself treating ‘everything’ as ‘nothing’.

It is at the precise moment that I take something for granted that I have placed myself in the precarious position of losing that very thing. And if that thing I risk losing is liberty, taking it for granted is foolishness of the most foolish sort.