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The Hero of Your Own Life

The quest — the call, the road, the return.

No. 1033 haiga4:43
From the curator

The quest: the call, the road, the return. It begins at the threshold — if the path before you doesn’t frighten you, it’s the wrong one — and reminds you whose story this is. The early haiga are the call to risk. The middle is the road, one step and one small stone at a time, through fire, mistakes, losses, and getting up once more than you were knocked down; its hinge is the oldest advice there is: the way out is through. Past the summit the poems turn to letting go of the need to win, and the ending circles home: live so that people who never knew you wish they had.

The haiga, in order

33 haiga · as they appear in the video
  1. if the path before / you does not make you afraid / you're on the wrong one
  2. you are the hero / of your own life, or have you / forgot already ?
  3. choose risk over safe / care more than you should, expect / the impossible
  4. life is either a / daring adventure or just / a waste of your time
  5. you can be safe or / you can take a chance and hope / that it turns out right
  6. courage is what gives / your life quality, while fear / gives you quantity
  7. never let your head / keep you from doing something / your heart says to do
  8. every step on a / ten thousand step journey is / just another step
  9. the way to begin / moving a mountain is to / start with the small stones
  10. beginning too much / is the best way for you to / accomplish little
  11. following two paths / at once is the quickest way / to get to nowhere
  12. it does not matter / how slowly you are going / just try not to stop
  13. to walk on fire / you merely need to forget / that there is fire
  14. that which does not kill / you will make you stronger, or / it will just kill you
  15. experience is / just a fancy way to say / you've made some mistakes
  16. a mistake is proof / that you have figured out one / way that did not work
  17. you only learn one / thing when you win, but a loss / will teach you many
  18. you cannot be good / at something until you have / first been bad at it
  19. grit is getting up / one more time than you have been / knocked down to the ground
  20. the way out is through / whatever difficulty / you find in your way
  21. the obstacles that / get in the way of your life / are what makes your life
  22. if you want to get / rid of a ghost then you need / to walk right through it
  23. what happens when you / get comfortable being / uncomfortable
  24. the true glory is / not in never falling but / in getting back up
  25. once you reach the top / there is nowhere else that you / really need to go
  26. you only have to / be ahead at one moment / in a game. the end
  27. if you can let go / of the need to win, then you / can enjoy the race
  28. the best moments of / your life occur when you stretch / yourself to make it
  29. if the path you take / disappears, you will find it / at your journey's end
  30. begin at the end / and you will always wind up / back where you started
  31. strive to be better / than the past you, and become / the you you should be
  32. at least live as long / as it takes for you to find / out why you were born
  33. live so that one day / people who do not know you / will wish they knew you
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