“You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be. And one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid…. You refuse to do it because you want to live longer…. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab you, or shoot at you or bomb your house; so you refuse to take the stand.
Well, you may go on and live until you are 90, but you’re just as dead at 38 as you would be at 90. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.”
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
I wanted to share this message from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. since this week was MLK Jr. Day, and I also find so many of his messages very impactful and profound. While I know that most of his speeches and messages were about social justice during the Civil Rights Movement in the 60's, I find that we can interpret these words to different meanings (as with most quotes) in our personal lives.
Since this is my first post in the New Year 2020, I wanted to talk about this message as it relates to fear causing us to not pursue what is right for us, what is our passion, what is our dream and for it to cause, as Dr. King says, an earlier death of the spirit.