Choose Your Brush Wisely

While driving home from St. George, Utah, last May, I caught my reflection in the rear view mirror, and for just a split second I didn't recognize the eyes looking back.  Through all my years I've always recognized the eyes of the man looking back at me in the mirror, even when the face changed a bit, but this time he looked different.  He was older.  He was weathered.  He was disappointed.  His eyes didn't shine like they usually do.  His eyes used to squint in laughter but that day they leaked in pain.  I'm 46 now, perhaps half way through life, so maybe it's a good time to figure out: What does happiness look like?  

"Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story." ~ Leo Tolstoy

We convincingly tell ourselves stories about why we're unhappy or why we can't be happy in this circumstance or that, yet how often do we convince ourselves that it's all perfectly fine?  It's perfectly acceptable, and I'll argue it's even healthy, to be in an undesirable situation and find moments of happiness.  I'm not suggesting hysterically laughing during a divorce proceeding but certainly there is some seed of happiness in another part of that same day.  And that is the point here...we characterize entire sections of our lives with pain but mere moments with happiness.  Countless times I've convinced myself that my unhappiness is deserved.  I've allowed this mindset to dilute my appreciation of everything around me.  Beauty washed out by my own thoughts.

"We have a tendency to paint unhappiness in our lives with a broad brush overextending the relevancy of the circumstance; yet we paint happiness with a fine tip brush carefully staying with the constraints of the moment.  Wouldn't you agree it's time to switch brushes?" ~ me 

We are all on a journey to find ourselves, better ourselves, make peace or be happy.  Literally, if we're not working towards some personal development goal then we are working to overcome some failure.    We're either content or discontented.  Over the last several years I've experienced both feelings and characterized my life as a work in progress.  Characterized an entire segment of my life with this broad brush!  I've searched outside myself for happiness and convinced myself I'm struggling to get some traction.  I've used that phrase quite a bit...trying to get some traction.  I've said I'm waiting for these ideas and plans ruminating inside my head to finally take shape.  Trying to get some traction is the phrase I've used as an excuse to explain where I am at this point in life and why I'm there.  I'm trying to get some traction on finding happy.

What does happiness look like?

We attempt to pinpoint, using the fine tip brush, happiness to a specific moment, yet we fail to understand the appreciation of that moment is only possible if we are happy.  Happiness is not the moment but rather the state surrounding this moment.  We needed a broad fanning brush of happiness swept across the entire situation--leading into, during and transitioning out of--to recognize this moment.  In this respect, happiness is difficult to quantify but it's easy to feel.  Happiness is the perfect harmony between mindset and moment.  It's an allowance to appreciate and partake in pleasures that encourage you to smile, laugh, feel and dream.  But here is the absolute kicker...you will never know happiness without also knowing discontent.  It's the same concept that recognizing the true beauty of the stars is only possible in darkness.

"Happiness is the perfect harmony of mindset and moment." ~ me

In reality, you cannot insulate yourself solely from either aspect of your journey.  You cannot guard against sorrow while being open to joy.  Opening your mind, body and soul to the prospect of true happiness also opens the door to the possibility of pain.  Experience them both and don't try to control that.  What you can control is which brush you choose to swipe across the canvas of life.  Choose the broad brush generously to paint happiness across your life; use the fine tip brush carefully, staying completely with the lines, to recognize the delineation of this moment in contrast to what your life truly is...HAPPY.

Thoughts on Being All In

I attended my son's high school basketball game yesterday.  Sitting behind his team's bench I was privy to the bench conversations, huddle strategics and court side direction.  It was all so very supportive and intentional...a positive experience for the boys and as a spectator.  And then, while watching the team finish a :30 second huddle and head back onto the floor, I overheard their exclamatory mantra: ALL IN!!!

"You can't do passion halfway. Living your passion means you're all in. You trust your heart and trust your gut wherever that takes you." ~ Joe Plumeri

I expected them to chant DEFENSE or SPARTANS or some other generic rah, rah go team phrase.  But ALL IN is a phrase that's been on my mind a lot lately.  It's also been on my fingertips and the tip of my tongue as I write and talk about my life.  So, being exactly who I am, I started thinking about what that means to me.  The first place I went was to my son.  I asked him why they chant ALL IN and he replied, "I don't know. They just told us to at the beginning so we do."  Ok, that was no help!

ALL IN: They're two very short words and, seemingly, quite generic.  But the first impression is that this signifies a commitment.  Bear in mind that I'm speaking from the point of view of how I use that phrase in life rather than how a basketball spectator uses it to watch the game.

Following the game I drove two hours back home and that phrase just kept popping into my head.  ALL IN is more than just an utterance of commitment.  It's not a generic chant, but rather a bold exclamation.  The ALL of this phrase states every ounce of your being--including your body, mind, spirit, heart and soul--is involved in this.

As the quote above suggests, it's a passion, an impetus towards something great.  That distinction separates this experience from a commitment.  With a commitment you have made a choice.  You've deliberated the pros and cons, and found greater value in the benefits than the impact of the detriments, and that is the point.  With a commitment some part of you retains hesitation and caution is born.  I believe to proclaim the word ALL, with absolute sincerity, is to describe yourself wholly.

The IN of this phrase suggests inclusion; an offering to participate.  Seeking inclusion to participate in an activity or event is preceded by an agreement.  "I understand the situation and I'd like to participate."

"There's no where you can be that isn't where you're meant to be..." ~ John Lennon

So what, exactly, makes ALL IN different?  Why am I writing about this?  It's because being ALL IN is not a choice.  There is no deliberation or qualification to join.  There is no asking for guidance prior.  It's literally surrendering to the magnetic impulses of your soul, not by succumbing to force or coercion, but by creating intentions for your journey and letting go.  It's simply an understanding that every part of you is every part of this, without question and without reservation.  It's ALL IN.

Thoughts on Walking Home

I'm in Florida and wrapping up a two-week training program for work.  It's January, the weather is amazing, I'm running every day and I'm inspired.  My inspiration lied dormant for a bit and, sadly, so did my appreciation for some of the little things in life...until today.  While on my run I witnessed something so simple but so beautiful.  It made me slow to a walk and smile.  It affected me so instantly that my first reaction was an impulse to approach these two people and express my veneration.  What, you might now wonder, could make me react this way and sit down to write about it?  I witnessed a father greet his middle-school-aged son getting off the school bus.

"We are all just walking each other home." ~ Ram Dass

I've known of this quote for a while and it resonated with me the first time I read it.  There was something about the imagery it conjured up for me.  And, truthfully, today when I witnessed the father and son greeting my recollection of this quote is what stopped me.

The son disembarked the school bus and walked directly towards his father, who was also walking to anticipate the meeting.  When they reached each other the father wrapped his arms around his son and the two shared a gentle laugh.  Then they exchanged a few words, the father wrapped one arm around his son's shoulder and they walked back towards their home.

All I did was witness a simple, likely daily, interaction between a father and his son, and now I just walked along smiling like an idiot!!  So your next question is probably, "What is wrong with this guy?" The answer to that question is either everything or nothing...check back later.  But to remain on point, the impactful moment for me was the greeting and walk home, and that got me thinking.

"No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another." ~ Charles Dickens

Looking back at the quote above, the obvious point when I first read this was that we are all just walking.  Doesn't that summon imagery of a quasi-pilgrimage?  Depending where you and your mindset are in life it may paint a picture of a head-down shuffle almost as if drawn to a destination.  But, somehow this show of father and son affection painted a completely different picture for me.  The walk is actually a journey and the point of this is not that we are walking, but that we are walking each other.

This life is far less about making the journey than it is about making it with someone, adding value to their journey, sometimes only sharing the sounds of your breath and other times a laugh.  Taking this journey together is giving yourself to someone.  It shifts your focus away from egocentrism and more toward creating an altruistic purpose in the world.  The ending remains the same, in that we all reach home, but the journey becomes built with intention.  This was simply a father and son meeting after school and walking home.  In some households this task my be referred to as, "I have to go get the kids," but in other households this is seen as an opportunity to walk each other home.

"The only thing we truly have in this world to give away is our love." ~ me

Live Your Rhythm

One of the things I love about life is the opportunity to talk and connect with people.  I've had some truly incredible, and sometimes emotional, interactions with random people, acquaintances and new friends.  These experiences have added value to my life and sometimes provide a new path for introspection.  It's in these moments that I've felt my heart swell, find direction and beat a little quicker.

On the contrary, some folks don't find this connection.  Instead they make a comparison; a juxtaposition of lives that ignites resentment.  These are your critics.

"The path to personal fulfillment comes from your heart, not your critics." ~ me

I've recently heard a phrase, while talking to one of my customers, that really stuck with me.  It was one of those phrases that makes you stop and really try to digest every word: Live your rhythm.  You've got to design your own flow, at your own pace, with your own motivations and inspirations.  The trick is finding like-minded people who encourage your journey, value your effort and believe in you, and the question is how do you find those people.

It's a question of balancing vulnerability and self-assuredness.  You will never realize the life you envision for yourself if you don't expose your intentions and your heart.  Your path is drawn by your heart, paved with desire, goals and fulfillment.  All too often we undervalue the voice inside but overvalue the voices of the critics.  Remember the critics?  The ones who are unable to support your journey because they compare and contrast life.

Living your rhythm means, to me, creating your direction and pace through life in harmony with your dreams.  It means listening to your own voice, your own heartbeat and your own intentions rather than those who project their own frustrations onto you.  It means navigating life the way you choose to navigate it, connecting with positive influences who contribute to the value of your life, experiencing the triumph of unabashedly opening your heart to the world and feeling the absolute peace of fulfillment.

"What happens when people open their hearts? They get better." ~ Haruki Murakami        

Thoughts on Watching Others Succeed

"Non nobis solum nati summum." ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

This phrase translates to "Not for ourselves alone are we born."  There is something about this phrase that just sticks with me and, oddly enough, makes me appreciate social media.  I think back to the first time I heard about Instagram and the criticism: Why do people care about the pictures you post?

I care...sometimes.  I care when I see your struggle, your discipline, your dedication and achievement.  As a result I subscribe to people who's journeys I care to see, the people within whom I see these traits.  I care because we are all in this together, yet we are all on our own journeys.  I care because you and I seem to have common interests.  I care because I've been in the bleachers of an Ironman finish, closing in on the midnight deadline and I've seen the pain in your face as you push through to cross the line.  With an empathetic and encouraging heart, I care because I know the voices in our heads are sometimes so convincing that they can't be ignored.  And social media is a great platform for this documentary of life and achievement.

I have often thought about two ideologies that seem to contradict one another.  The thought that no one has the power to cause us pain by criticizing us unless we let them and the other thought that our own words have the power to build or destroy.  These are contradictory to me because it's a play on the locus on control.  We either have the internal fortitude to shrug off negativity or we believe we have the power to alter someone's entire world with our utterances.  Is it in us or not?  Is it in them or not?  Is the struggle internal or external?  Are we our own hero or do we succumb to the antagonists of the world?  Maybe what's really most important is not whether others have some impact on our journey, but that to achieve a purposeful life we need to positively impact others.

"Doing nothing for others is the undoing of ourselves." ~ Horace Mann 

My point of this thought is this: I believe there is no greater human experience than cheering for someone else to succeed.  I believe in great personal experiences, but to be human means to participate in humanity, and I believe we have an innate necessity to participate in the human achievement.  The voices spewing doubt in our heads, or outside our heads, are bullshit, and we all know that.  But the voices singing our praise are real, and we need to remember that.

I've been focusing my attention on the concept of vulnerability for a bit now.  The goal, any goal, of achievement is laying yourself on the line.  It's literally stepping forward to take on more.  It's a show of willingness to try and fail more than anything else.  As witnesses to this brave step forward we should have no other reaction that honest encouragement.

"I want to treat all of life like an Ironman finishing chute: on my feet, tears of joy in my eyes, fully engaged and cheering at the top of my lungs for those around me to succeed." ~ me

The Olympics are a fantastic demonstration of our willingness to support our fellow (wo)man.  But why should that support be any different than the support we give our training buddies, friends, neighbors, acquaintances or even perfect strangers?  I find incredible inspiration from the people I find and follow on Instagram.  Your journey is amazing and you are amazing.  Remember that.

The next time you scroll across someone's Instagram feed and see a photo of their alarm set for 4:00am with some sort of motivational message, or see a photo of their three hour trainer ride, or read some comment about how cold the pool is at 5:00am, remember they have faced the same doubts and challenges you do.  The difference is that they chose not to listen to the doubt, nor the critics.  They chose to put themselves on the line and share their journey.  That locus of control lives within them.  This is their journey so our only hope is that they hear our cheers just enough to push a little harder, hang on a little longer and reach a little farther.

Self...

"Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world.  Today I am wise, so I am changing myself." ~ Rumi 

I've been alive now for 45 years and at this stage in my life there seems to be a fascinatingly common theme: Self.  I know that sounds arrogant or ego-centric, but hear me out.

I'm finding that self is a prefix to many of the attributes I work on daily: self-acknowledging, self-reliance, self-sufficiency, self-confidence, self-affirming, self-assurance, etc.  Developing confidence and even admiration in one's self is not arrogant; it's necessary to growth.  In the last 45 years there are a handful of things in this world that I can say I have great knowledge of...myself is not one.

"My past is everything I failed to be." ~ Fernando Pessoa

At times my self talk has included self-rejection, self-deprecation and self-loathing.  I've let my failures and successes define me on the daily, always putting myself behind what I accomplished or failed to accomplish.  I didn't know myself so I defined it by tasks.

The root of this misunderstanding is trust in myself.  I'd believed my worth was defined by what I had done rather than what I could do.  Trust is faith, while the opposing view is doubt.  When you begin to define yourself by doubt you lose sight of who are capable of being.  Regardless of whether I accomplished this or that, I am still worthy.  I am still on track.  I am still OK.  I am still me.

"As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live." ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I believe that no matter what path you've walked, stumbled or fallen down thus far you can always be true to yourself.  The clarity with which you see yourself now is the single most important factor to the clarity with which you will see your path.  Be true!  Once you begin to train your mind to attach self to positive and reflective traits you will begin to understand yourself and build upon your potential.  After all, your potential or the thought of tomorrow is the only thing you can work on today.  Yesterday is in the books so the effort right now is what shapes tomorrow.

Think self a little more and take pride in it.

Learning New Words

Social media is really a fascinating creature.  In one respect I've felt incredibly connected to people I have never met face-to-face yet with whom I share common interests, and in another I have never been more appalled at the sickening disrespect some people show from behind the keyboard.  That's life though, really.  Some people share triumphs and others share pain.  Some share positivity and others share dribble.  I choose to seek out and follow positivity and inspiration on social media...and in life.  I've found that life and even social media are teaching me things.  I'm learning new words.

"The words we say to ourselves can serve as elixir or venom, and only we can decide which.  Can you imagine a greater gift or a greater responsibility?" ~ Jason Huntsinger

I have always considered myself to be a positive and productive person.  I've accomplished some great things in my life and remained hopeful.  But my frame of reference has, in hindsight, been fairly narrow.  I've never travelled the world.  I've only been out of the United States twice barely outside the borders to the north and south.  Social media has broadened my perspective and the authors of the information and thoughts I follow inspire me.  I've seen photos of the most amazing places from points of view that were previously unimaginable.  I've read stories from fellow athletes about epic
adventures and races.  I've followed individuals through weight loss and watched them accomplish goals.  It's so utterly amazing and inspiring.

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled." ~ Plutarch 

I recall during my undergraduate studies reading a synopsis of Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat thinking how incredible it was to think school age kids in far-off lands had access to the same information highway that I did.  I was, again, narrowly focusing.  As if everyone in the world wanted to see what I could see and access the information that I could access.  I am now the one seeking to understand the beauty that so many of you live for and dream about.  What does it really feel like to stand on the face of a sheer cliff and look out at the sunrise?  How about swimming with turtles off the coast of Costa Rica?  What about envisioning a dream for yourself to win a race and then actually fulfilling that dream?  Simply amazing experiences that I can see through social media.  I'm learning new words through these experiences; Words I either failed to understand or failed to learn in all my 45 years on this earth.   These are some of the new words I've learned from you.

• Inspiration:  The many athletes who have achieved some goal or milestone and then share their recipe for success.  I've seen your struggles and read your ups and downs, and when you overcame the bumps in the road you inspired me to keep going, too.
• Dedication:  So many people rest in comfort zones because they are comfortable.  Yet, those of you who push yourselves to the next level of physical and mental toughness do so by dedicating yourself to your plan.  I get it. 
• Happiness:  Not one single person who has accomplished a goal as documented on social media has done so in a state of sadness or despair.  The motion of defining a goal and crafting a lifestyle to accomplish that goal begets happiness.  I see what it looks like to be happy in your faces.
• Compassion:  So many people I follow choose to devote part of themselves to some greater cause: challenged athletes, disabled veterans, orphaned children and animals just to name a few.  Life is bigger than me and now, and you continue to show me what it means to give of yourself. 
• Love:  This is more than the flippant phrase we throw around to describe how much we like a shirt.  I've seen people demonstrating unconditional love for others and themselves.  We are all dealing with our own struggles in life and social media has broadened my understanding of what it looks like to love one another.
• Success:  This is one topic I've found to be so arbitrary because it's completely subjective.  But that subjectivity is its beauty.  Whether you set the bar here or there, reaching your goal and realizing the effects of that accomplishment are truly successes.

"Good people bring out the good in people."

Social media gets a bum rap, I believe.  While some people enjoy sharing the adventures they encounter others may scoff at their perceived insecurity and need for attention.  Yet social media, like many things in this world, are exactly what we make of it.  If we choose to see the ugly in it we should not be surprised when it appears.  However, when we choose to see it as an opportunity to connect with people we see as mentors and examples of good we will not be disappointed when we begin to grow as people...and learn new words.