This Year, Go All the Way

A life-changing poem to begin 2026...

Happy New Year! I’ve never been one for resolutions, but every January I return to the words I’m about to share with you. I reread them as a reminder that, as someone far wiser than me once said, “You can’t beat death, but you can beat death in life.”

Today, I want to offer these words to you for 2026. Whether you’re a creative, a student, an athlete, a scientist, an artist, or simply someone with a dream; whether you need encouragement, permission to rediscover your true self, or a spark of inspiration, I hope you find in them the same beauty I do. To me, they are the truest expression of how creation — and, by extension, living — demands absolute commitment.

May they reach you at exactly the right moment in your life…

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Roll The Dice - Charles Bukowski

If you’re going to try, go all the

way.

Otherwise, don’t even start.

If you’re going to try, go all the

way.

This could mean losing girlfriends,

wives, relatives, jobs and

maybe your mind.

Go all the way.

It could mean not eating for 3 or 4 days.

It could mean freezing on a

park bench.

It could mean jail,

it could mean derision,

mockery,

isolation.

Isolation is the gift,

all the others are a test of your

endurance, of

how much you really want to

do it.

And you’ll do it

despite rejection and the worst odds

and it will be better than

anything else

you can imagine.

If you’re going to try,

go all the way.

There is no other feeling like

that.

You will be alone with the gods

and the nights will flame with

fire.

Do it, do it, do it.

do it.

All the way.

All the way.

You will ride life straight to

perfect laughter, its

the only good fight

there is.

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I can’t quite put into words how much I love this poem. The language is powerful, yet it points toward something even deeper…

Bukowski’s gravestone reads: “Don’t Try”.

He first used this phrase in one of his poems, offering advice to aspiring writers and poets about creativity and inspiration. With this epitaph, Bukowski wasn’t endorsing laziness or contradicting the message of “roll the dice.” Rather, he was emphasizing that genuine creation comes from an innate compulsion, not from forced effort or a hollow desire for fame or fortune. It’s about showing up and letting your work emerge from your true self — without straining to be someone else or producing something merely “good.” You create because not creating is simply impossible. On this, he once said:

When everything works best, it’s not because you chose writing but because writing chose you. It’s when you’re mad with it, it’s when it’s stuffed in your ears, your nostrils, under your fingernails. It’s when there’s no hope but that.

You know a pursuit is worth it when, no matter what anyone says, you’re willing to go the distance. If the struggle of becoming something feels too hard, or if rejection and ridicule stop you, Bukowski might simply say, “Don’t try.” But if living without it feels unbearable, if the thought of not pursuing it is inconceivable, then perhaps he would say: “Try. And if you’re going to try, go all the way.”

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Thank you for taking the time to read this, and Happy New Year!

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