Change your Stars

Snow this morning. The kind that hits your face sideways when you step outside and makes you question every life choice that brought you to Illinois in March.

Yesterday we had tornado sirens and seventy degrees.

Sunday we lost an hour of sleep when the clocks jumped forward.

Friday carried the reputation of Friday the 13th.

And last Tuesday felt like something out of a bad movie. A school threat. A horse in the hospital. Phones ringing. Kids worried. One of those days where everything stacks on top of everything else and you are running on adrenaline and coffee trying to keep all the plates spinning.

Then suddenly it is Monday.

Snow on the ground.

Quiet again.

Weeks like this remind me how fast life can swing. Tornadoes one day. Snow the next. Chaos on Tuesday. Calm by the weekend. None of it moves in straight lines.

Over the weekend I saw one of those random TikToks that stops you mid-scroll.

It was one of those “90s heartthrobs” clips.

And boom. Heath Ledger popped up.

Immediately my brain went straight to one movie.

A Knight’s Tale.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy7g7YLW_Ig

Sir William Thatcher. Also known as the very confident and slightly ridiculous “Sir Ulrich von Liechtenstein.”

If you have seen the movie, you know exactly what I am talking about.

There is a scene in that movie where William is basically told he does not belong. He is not noble. He is not wealthy. He is not from the right family.

One of the lines goes something like this.

“You have been weighed. You have been measured. And you have been found wanting.”

That line hits a little different when you get older.

Because most of us hear some version of that in life.

Not good enough.

Not qualified enough.

Not connected enough.

Not experienced enough.

And then comes the line that matters more.

“You can change your stars.”

At the time it sounded like a great movie line. A medieval underdog story about a poor kid pretending to be a knight so he can compete in tournaments.

But the older I get, the more I realize the concept behind it is not fictional at all.

It is actually one of the most honest truths about life.

No one is coming to save you.

That line gets thrown around a lot lately. It sounds harsh when you first hear it. Almost cold.

But it is not meant to be harsh.

It is meant to be freeing.

Your life sits in your hands.

If you want to change your career, your health, your finances, your knowledge, your future.

The responsibility sits with one person.

You.

Only you.

You can change your stars.

And the funny thing is we watch people do it every single day.

Someone goes from broke to wealthy.

Someone goes from knowing nothing about a skill to becoming the expert everyone else calls for advice.

Someone starts with zero connections and ends up leading a company, a team, a movement.

Those people did not wait for permission.

They made a decision.

“I can, and I will.”

Where most of us get stuck is right after the word can.

“But.”

I can, but I have kids.

I can, but I do not have the money.

I can, but I do not have the time.

I can, but my family expects something else.

I can, but I am already behind.

That little word closes a lot of doors before they even open.

And I say that as someone who uses it more than I care to admit.

Kids.

Financial pressure.

Schedules.

Relationships.

Responsibilities.

Those things are real. They shape our lives. They affect the timeline.

But if we are honest with ourselves, they also turn into crutches sometimes.

We start slamming doors in our own faces before life even gets the chance to test us.

We say “can’t” way too quickly.

The truth sits somewhere in the middle.

Changing your stars takes work. Slow work. The kind of work no one sees. The kind that happens after everyone else goes to bed. The kind that stacks day after day until suddenly people say things like “wow, you got lucky.”

Luck had nothing to do with it.

Hard work and dedication sound like clichés because people repeat them all the time. But people repeat them because they work.

So if you see an opportunity. If you see a path that leads somewhere better. If you know what it will take to get there.

Go.

Do the work.

Be the example.

The rest of us watch those stories and something inside us lights up.

Hope.

Because some of us are still standing at the starting line.

We have the ideas.

We have the vision.

Life slowed the timeline a little more than we expected.

But we are still here.

Still trying.

Still believing we can change our stars too.

And maybe that is why that TikTok stuck with me.

Yes, A Knight’s Tale technically premiered in 2001. Close enough to the 90s to count in my book.

Heath Ledger will always be one of those legendary heartthrobs for those of us who grew up around that time.

People love to talk about the Joker role.

He played it well.

But in my mind he will never be the Joker.

He will always be William.

The kid from nothing who stepped into the arena anyway.

The one who believed he could change his stars.

And honestly, if you need proof people can change a few things over time… just look at us 90s kids.

We went from stirrup pants and saddle shoes…

to high tops and windbreaker pants that made that loud swish-swish noise every time you walked down the hallway.

And somewhere in the middle of all that was a truly questionable oversized perm.

So yeah.

We have been changing our stars for a while now.