RAMONES: Life: The Manual

Do you remember that feeling you used to get counting down the days to your birthday? You all had, or will have that one birthday -- 13, 16, 18, 21 -- where you're itching to enjoy every second of it. What happened to us? When did we stop getting excited about every day?

We've all seen that quote by Nelson Mandela, the one that says that we're not really afraid of failing but we're afraid of how great we really are. We all used to try to sabotage ourselves at least in one area in our life and make up for it another area. Our relationships suck so we work out; our grades suck so we go party; our health sucks so we study. When did we make this belief that we can't be great in all areas in our lives? When are we going to change it?

Many of you may have been thinking this just a bunch of motivational crap that won't really help with anything in your life. How long have you been using that excuse to keep you from truly succeeding? Whether it be at school, work, health or love? How long have you been saying, "That's not me," or "I can't do it," and choose to be jaded and not live up to your true potential? I know I've let it be too long.

Truly answer two questions:

How long have you been keeping the people around you waiting for you to step up as the great person you truly are?

What are you going to do about it now that you know that you are better and deserve better?

I used to self sabotage myself by not speaking up or not acting upon the great ideas I had because I was afraid of failing or getting criticized. I saw the people who were successful, beautiful or anything else I wanted to be. I would think that they must really "have issues," and they had to step on everyone around them to get to where they are. So every time I had a chance at being successful I would sabotage myself. Most times inaction is the worst action you can take. So I let myself and people around me continue to feel miserable because I felt more comfortable dreaming about it than having it.

As long as you're comfortable and know that you need to change, if you don't feel it and get pissed off about it, you won't change. It's a choice. You can choose to be mediocre. You can choose to be depressed, fat, poor or dumb. You can choose to be exceptional. You can choose to be happy, fit, wealthy or intelligent. Now some of you may have said, "Well, I wasn't born into a good environment," or, "Only some people can be great," or whatever other excuse you tell yourself to sleep at night. But what do you say about all those people that had more than enough reason to not be successful but stepped up anyways; the Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Oprahs of the world. The difference between you and them is that they discovered the choice to cast away their security blankets and stepped up.

At first, your little voice inside of your head might start saying you can't do this, but maybe at the same time you notice a little pull saying that you can, you must do this for yourself. You'll notice that both parts really want the same thing: the best for you. One side was afraid of the feedback you might get from taking action (because failure isn't really failure but just feedback that your strategy might not be working). The other side knows that whatever happens, you're good enough and that you're really the one in control of your own destiny. It's your choice where you decide to live and who you decide to listen to. Either way you think about it, you're right.

Stephanie Ramones, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. She can be reached at sramones@bu.edu.