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We're almost out of time, if there are any last things you'd like to say.
No, thanks, it's been good for me, hopefully I can get a copy. I got a guy who's a writer—if I can get a hold to it, I certainly have the beginnings in this time, because this is what he's been trying to get me to do for a long time, so, once you get it together and get it copyrighted and all, let me know. Then I can give it to him and say, "Here, shoot for it, now you make an order out of it." Because we've been trying to do this for a long time, he's a really nice guy. But there's a whole lot of stuff, obviously, I mean, just so much that we didn't get to that I was hoping we would. But, since you all are young people, one point I'd like to try to get across is: live your life. Live it, make decisions about what you want to do. Don't let yourself get pigeonholed too early, and give it a shot. If you think you might want to, go ahead. Whatever it is. I get young people all the time, boys and girls. I got a partner of mine, she's eighteen, getting ready to go to college, and she's a good basketball player, and I asked, "You gonna try to play basketball in college?" She said, "Well, I kind of want to, but I don't know..." And I said, "well, my recommendation: give it a shot." Get it out of your system. You don't want to waste time later on about what-ifs. You understand? Get the what-ifs out of the way. And you can live a real good life that doesn't have a label on it. If you ask me, "what was I?" Except for being a preacher, I can't really label the rest of it. But I know for all the ups and downs, for all the failures, it's been good. It has been good. Life has been a kick, I had plenty of fun. I am grateful to have survived some of the fun, 'cause much of it was very crazy fun. And part of the reason I think that I've enjoyed it so much is that, for much of it, I believed I was trying to make it better. I may not have been—I may even have been making it worse. Now, the difficult part of that is it has not left me in great financial standing. And, as I'm older, I'm kind of sorry about that, but it's cool. It's cool. I can't complain now, because it was okay when I was living life on my own terms, and I could tell everybody to, you know, kiss it. I wasn't complaining then, so now that I come near now—if God was good then, God is still good when I'm in financial difficulty, you follow me?
And so, live your life. Enjoy your life. Don't let your life become pop. Don't be governed in life because Madonna or whoever—Madonna's a little passé for you all guys—don't do it because they doing it. You follow me? Discover who you are. And don't accept what folk say about you. And when you make a mistake, don't live in your past, and don't let other folk live in your past either. Because you're going to make some, and don't let them define you. There's a quick story in the Bible about a man named Jabez. And Jabez asked God to enlarge his territory, enlarge his coast, give him more. And if you study the word Jabez, his mother named him that word, in Hebrew means "pain." His mother named him "pain." But he didn't allow his life to be defined by what people called him, by what people said he was, what people say you are. And don't you all do that either. Because if you do, then you'll never believe that you can make a difference. Because the one thing all of us are called is "one." They'll say, "You're only one, or you're only one, or he's only one, I'm only one, we can't make no difference." That's a lie. That's a lie. Every difference has been made by one. Now, it might have been a whole lot of ones working together, but they were all just one. Amen. So, you know, that's all. If anything I say is going to be viewed by young people, then my biggest concern is that they get all out of life that life has to offer, and you'll never get it if you allow yourself to be pigeonholed too early. You got all your life, you do all that stuff later. And always remember, an old lady, one of the mothers at church taught me: folk will say anything to get you to do what they want you to do. Alright, we cool? Alright.
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