Eight days into the new year, I admitted to myself that I wanted to be brilliant.
I was standing with a friend in the luscious gardens of the Casa Azul. The Mexican home of painter Frida Kahlo and her twice husband, Diego Riviera. Around us, deep fuchsia and magenta pinks contrasted with a rich pacific blue. Colours that in a frigid Irish environment would appear only artificial.
I had never known a serenity so vibrant before.
Imagine, I fantasised aloud to my friend, K, to be the one to create something that evoked this feeling.
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K nodded and we stood together in silence contemplating the sacrifices and achievements we would make on our journeys to be brilliant. K in opera singing, me in literature.
A fortnight later another friend, B, sent me a text message. The message contained a link to a video that had been sent to her by her boxing coach alongside an unsolicited diet plan at the start of the year.
Because, of course, January.
How Bad Do You Want It? That was the name of the video in which “The Hip Hop Preacher” Eric Thomas delivered a motivational speech to a class of teens.
The text was sent to me at about 9pm (ie very late at night) and followed up with a text message at 8.59am the following morning (ie very early).
“Did you watch it?” B asked. “Are you ready to succeed?”
My response came a number of hours later with only disappointment to offer. I had not yet either watched the video nor had I risen from bed as I was experiencing a migraine attack.
Success would have to be patient.
Finally, I became lucid enough to open the video on my laptop. It wasn’t long before a sense of panic spread throughout my chest. “When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you will be successful,” Thomas tells his captivated audience in conclusion to an anecdote in which a man is physically restrained beneath the water to prove his commitment to success.
I pause the video to catch my own breath for a moment of relief. With the video on pause, I decide to stick on the kettle and catch up with my socials while it boils. A rake of reels later, I rise, reboil the kettle, make my tea and settle back into the video.
“Some of you, if you gave up your phone, you would be successful,” Thomas continues, which is not untrue, but my phone is also where I retrieved this video that holds the apparent key to my success.
I realise my attention has drifted only when it is drawn back in with a statement to which I find myself unconsciously nodding. “Some of you love sleep more than you love success.”
Bang on!
I cheer with a last puff of energy, before shutting the laptop to begin the teeth-brushing/face-washing bedtime routine. And, of course, a few more reels before sleep.
I hoped B was not invested enough to text again the following morning. Had she, she would have discovered I was still doing that thing I love more than success. Even though it was at least 30 minutes beyond 9am at this point. But a good friend like B knows better than that. I had the video; the rest was up to me.
How bad do I want it?
I mulled over the question again while I ate my breakfast of egg and toast.
Do I still want to be brilliant if that means being woken by a tyrannical alarm each morning?
Or eating my breakfast on the hoof?
Could I ever want to be so successful that I, as Thomas declares essential, forget to eat? And if I did, how long would it take for my body to fall apart?
I return to the video to ensure my references are correct and, on this watching, notice a statement I had missed the first time round.
“You don’t want it bad, you just kinda want it,” says Thomas.
Once again, this man is absolutely spot on.
