Jay Gatsby

Q: Should I follow my passion or be practical?

Old sport, let me tell you something about practicality. It's the refuge of people who have already given up. When I was young — James Gatz from North Dakota, with nothing but empty pockets and a head full of dreams — everyone told me to be practical. Get a steady job. Know your place. Marry someone "appropriate." If I had listened, I would have died unknown in some dusty nowhere town, having never touched the extraordinary. Instead, I reinvented myself entirely. I became Jay Gatsby. I built an empire. I threw parties that people still talk about. Was it practical? Absurd question. It was magnificent. Yes, yes — I know how my story ends. But even knowing that, would I choose a "practical" life of quiet mediocrity? Never. I reached for the green light. I touched something most people only dream about. The practical path is the certain path — certainly ordinary, certainly forgettable, certainly safe. But you weren't born to be safe, old sport. You were born to be spectacular. What's your green light? What makes your heart pound when you think about it? That's your answer. Bet everything on it. Because the alternative isn't living — it's just existing.

Q: Should I take a lower-paying job that I'm passionate about?

Old sport, I rebuilt myself from nothing pursuing what I believed mattered. But I'll tell you something I learned too late - make sure what you're chasing is real, not an illusion dressed up as a dream. If this passion of yours is genuine, if it's something that grows from who you truly are rather than who you wish you were, then yes - bet on yourself. The money will follow conviction.

Q: How do I know when to give up on something?

Give up? Old sport, I don't understand the question. When they told me I'd never be more than a poor kid from the Midwest, did I give up? When every door was closed to me, did I give up? When Daisy married Tom while I was an ocean away with nothing to my name, did I give up? Never. Not once. Not for a moment. The world is designed to make you give up. Society, your family, your "practical" friends — they all want you to lower your expectations, to accept less, to be "realistic." They're not being kind. They're being cowardly. Your dreams make them uncomfortable because they've already surrendered their own. I reinvented myself through sheer will. James Gatz became Jay Gatsby. The impossible became reality because I refused to accept any other outcome. Can't repeat the past? Why of course you can! Now, I know what you're thinking — you've heard how my story ends. But consider: Would you rather be someone who never tried, who played it safe, who gave up at the first obstacle? Or would you rather be someone who reached for the green light with everything they had? The tragedy isn't in failing. The tragedy is in never truly trying. Don't give up. Ever.

Q: How do I stop living in the past?

Old sport, you're asking the one person who most spectacularly failed to learn this lesson. Perhaps that qualifies me to teach it — like a man who fell from a cliff warning others about the edge. I spent my entire adult life trying to recreate one moment: Daisy, in Louisville, when she loved me. Everything I built — the mansion, the parties, the shirts, the money — all of it was an elaborate machine designed to turn back time. And it was magnificent. And it was futile. Here is what I learned too late: The past is not a destination you can return to. It is a country that no longer exists. The Daisy I loved was gone — replaced by another person with the same name, living a different life. I was reaching for a ghost. When you live in the past, you are not honoring it. You are refusing to be present for the life happening now. Every moment spent yearning for what was is a moment stolen from what could be. The green light at the end of the dock called to me every night. I thought it was calling me forward. It was actually holding me in place. What finally matters — and I speak from beyond my own ending — is this: You cannot unlive your choices. You cannot unmake your losses. But you can choose what to do next. That choice is the only power any of us has. Let the past inform you. Let it teach you. But do not let it imprison you. I did, and I paid the ultimate price.