In February of 1997, a man named Stephane Breitwieser walked into the Rubens House in Antwerp, Belgium.
It wasn’t his first visit to the museum.
In fact, he and his girlfriend, who helped him in many of his capers, had already staked it out multiple times.
You see, Breitwieser, only 25 at the time, was an expert in stealing art.
During his career, he stole over $1.4 billion worth of paintings, statues, jewelry, tapestries, chalices, weapons, musical instruments, and religious relics — all in broad daylight, without any violence, threats, or damage.
On this particular day, Breitwieser walked out with a small ivory figurine by a 17th-century master.
And he got away with it.
In fact, he kept getting away with it.
And as his successes mounted, he kept getting more brazen — and more addicted to stealing.
The amazing thing was he wasn’t doing any of it for money.
He never sold anything he stole.
Instead, he stashed it all in his room, on the top floor of his mother’s house, where he would lie around and admire all the beautiful things he now owned.
Of course, eventually Breitwieser’s extraordinary run came to an end.
He was arrested after returning to the Richard Wagner Museum in Switzerland, where he had stolen a little curled bugle several days earlier.
Once arrested, Breitwieser broke down at the police station, and wound up confessing to the theft of over 300 pieces, from over 200 museums.
Now here’s the instructional part.
Breitwieser eventually got out of jail.
And while he was legally forbidden from setting foot into the museums he had stolen from, he nonetheless made his way back to the Rubens House in Antwerp.
He looked at the statuette he had stolen twenty years earlier, which was reinstated in the exhibit.
And he realized that that day in February 1997 was probably the very high point of his life.
He had gotten such a rush from stealing.
He had amassed such a treasure trove of beautiful objects.
And he felt invincible — for a while.
But that was all long gone.
Now he was on the outside, and he would never be able to reclaim his former thieving glory.
Kind of a strange thought.
That a moment in your life, 20 years ago, was as good as it will ever get.
And that the rest of your life will only be one long anticlimax.
But here’s the thing.
Fortunately, you are probably not an art thief — real or aspiring.
And so, even if you look back in your past and realize that things used to be better than they are now…
There’s nothing stopping you from working towards a new goal, which will overshadow whatever pinnacle you had achieved in the past.
And the thing is, the very act of working towards that goal will give you more meaning and satisfaction than any past achievement could.
At least, that’s how I see it.
And how I try to live my life.
Maybe you disagree.
And if you do — or you need some inspirational copy written for your email list — get in touch with me and let me know what’s up.