Looking Back To Today

"When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained." -Mark Twain

Recently a friend posted a few pictures of our college days on Facebook. He, myself and several other folks spent a couple of years together at Peru State College in Nebraska. A diverse lot of fellows that somehow seemed to put most differences aside and had a really great time.

Seeing the pictures started pulling on my strings of reminiscence. So off to the attic to pull out the worn pages and pictures of days gone by. Let me tell you it was a wonderful journey back in time. It was a view back that made me wonder how I had made it this far. It was also a view that explained exactly how I reached this wonderful point in life.

As I looked through the pages of old newspapers and pictures, I felt the ground beneath my feet. The path I was creating came from mistakes, success, boredom, shear terror and blind boldness. The cobblestones were laid out in front of me with friends and family. The journey was given to me by my faith.

It is easy to look at our life today and wonder if we made the right choices. It becomes easy to doubt what we did. But if you look back at the proving grounds of your past, you may find that life was simply teaching you how to live.

I remember the time shown in the picture above. We were young and ambitious College Student Activity Council kids. One of the hot regional bands was a group called Cricket. They had the greatest sound and energy one could expect and we had them for an early school year performance. An outdoor concert that requires all of the crazy logistics one could imagine. I'm not sure I even got to enjoy it and how a bunch of 19-year old kids pulled it off is beyond me.

So yes, you look back and wonder at how mad we were. But the mystery of whom we are now begins to disappear. We were simply trying to figure out our lives and learning about life along the way. Those experiences have brought us to where we are today. And I am happy for having gone through all of it.

It also excites me for what the next fifty years will bring. What will I look back to and see how the road was built. Will you look back and marvel at your own journey? Of course you will. Once you do, then look forward and envision the road you will take. That road is yours to take.

There is greatness to your life that makes all you have gone through well worth it. There is greatness to come in your life for you to pursue.

The Fire Inside

"Success isn't a result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire." -Arnold H. Glasow

I have heard it said that when there's nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire. You can't wait for others to come along each time to light it for you. There needs to be a mechanism from within that you can use to re-ignite your passion.

Too many times we run out of steam in our pursuit of our best life. The road can become long and weary. There are those moments when it can feel like the struggle isn't worth the effort. This becomes your signal to re-fuel, to re-stoke the fire within.

The keys are to look at your goals again and tell yourself how great its going to be once you achieve them. Then pick up something inspirational to read such as the Bible, or self-help books written by motivational authors or maybe even mine. But find the words that inspire and motivate you. Find the words that lift you up and remind you that all is truly possible.

This is also the moment that people with negative personalities will seem to suddenly appear. They are usually the first on scene, like firemen that have come to put out your fire completely. In this particular case, you need to avoid those people. Move as far away from them as you can.

Get yourself around people that will help you keep those embers burning. The positive kind of people that will help you collect and add fuel to that fire. They will be the kind of people that help you protect that fire.

Keep the fire burning for your dreams, visions, and goals. Never give up on yourself.

Breath of Air

"The time to relax is when you don't have time for it." -Sydney J. Harris

This has been one of those stressful weeks at work. It has been filled with the angst of understanding a problem and how to fix it. It also involves how to relay that information to another person to help them understand.

I get reminded by people that I need to read my own blog articles from time to time. That is because I am human just like everyone else. I get frustrated, stressed, down, and generally bent out of shape at times. What matters is how I or you recover from those episodes.

In actuality, it is very much like swimming, or learning how to swim. You can get very flustered and begin thrashing about in the water. That is the moment in time that most experts will tell you to just relax.

In fact you could take the following three tips on learning to swim for most any stressful situation.

1. Understand how breathing works and how it's related to every move you make in the water (life). How could you think about anything else first?

2. Next is to relax a bit because you now understand how breathing works. Your relaxed body will learn basic swim strokes (refocus).

3. Throughout all this, to repeat; you won't worry so much about breathing because you already understand how to get your air (balance and focus).

Simply put, step back and relax and most importantly - breathe.

No Fear

"You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith." -Mary Manin Morrissey

Sit back and think about how many times you would have done something in life if fear had not entered your mind. Think of standing up in front of an audience to deliver a presentation, asking that girl across the room out to a movie, or trying out for the baseball team. Maybe you thought of trying to act in a play and sing in a musical. Or what about trying to write a book?

Now sit back and think about all of those experiences and how they could have changed your life. Think of where you would be today if you had pushed fear out of the way. The darkness of living in fear would have been lifted by the light of new experience.

I know because I pushed aside fear and did everyone of those things. Was I a success at all of them? No, but each of them have allowed me to experience a great life.

By turning off that knob of fear, by chasing it from your life, there is so much more to be gained. Try something different and when fear gets in the way, knock it aside. This is your life and it is full of great things for you.