RastaRobert

It all seemed to turn around after I met Bob Marley. The day was kind of sour, but he said something to me I won’t soon forget.

“Will you roll this joint for me?”

I couldn’t believe it at first, but then I watched his fingers fumbling with the paper. Bright green stuff peppered the center of the paper, tilted to one end, threatening to fall out. He really didn’t know how to do it. Which got me wondering how many he had smoked in his life. And how many had he rolled in that same life?

And if he didn’t roll them, then who did? People like me who he met on the street?

It got me thinking how many times I’d felt like I was born to do something only to find out that thing was really hard for me.

Why did I quit when things got hard? I should’ve just kept after it ’til I got better at it.

Skateboarding when I was a young punk—that was hard—especially the falling down part; I should have done it more, fallen down less as I progressed.

What a great bit of advice! What a revelatory idea!

That Bob Marley is so insightful!

He made my day better. He helped raise my motivation level. I thought of more things I could have done if I worked through the struggling stage. Major League Baseball. Navigating the North Pacific. Parachuting. Aerospace engineering. Understanding women.

Even understanding Rastafarian escapism. Suddenly I did. I understood it. But I understood his advice that much better, so I told him, “Take your own advice. You’ll never learn if someone else does it for you.”

And I walked on, with a smile on my face.

Thanks Bob!