Asteroids and Opportunity

 

"Sometimes you have close calls and don't think anything of it, but it's a near miss really." -John Dilling

It was a close call last night (11/08/2011) at 6:28 PM on the east coast of the United States. Actually a close call for all of the planet. A rather large and imposing asteroid came within 201,700 miles of hitting the Earth. That is closer to the Earth than the orbit of the Moon.

This deep space visitor named 2005 YU55 paid us a visit and many of us didn't even realize it passed by. NASA sent microwaves onto the asteroid from a radio telescope near Barstow, California in order to reflect and receive greater details about the asteroid. I am pretty sure there were many other agencies doing the same thing.

This isn't the first time it has passed by and it will not be the last time. Its elliptical orbit takes it deep into space and was only discovered in 2005. Hence the name given as "2005 YU55" and this is the closest it has come for at least the last 200 years. It won't come close again for at least another 100 years according to scientists.

What amazes me is that we have "near misses" everyday in many different ways. Things happen in our world and life that we are totally unaware of most the time. There are ripples of life flowing through out our days that we ride through without a moments notice. Only when we start worrying about them do we feel the anxiety.

We could worry about any and every thing going on. A tree bending in the wind might fall and do damage. The tire on our car might go flat while driving down the freeway. The sun might explode, the earth may stop rotating, the 2012 predictions might come true, or any one of a million things.

You have to keep living life and let a large part of that worry go. Maybe that worry you are doing is keeping you from meeting opportunity in life. Maybe those near misses are opportunities you failed to encounter because you were sitting alone, hiding from possibility.

Your movement in life creates the chance you will meet up with great things. The intersection of inspiration and achievement can not be entered by doing nothing. The road to it may have some hardship and pain. But that road will also teach, strengthen, and grow your life. That road will prepare you.

Don't allow yourself to miss out on possibility in life. Don't let those near-misses happen. The asteroid "2005 YU55" may one day turn from a "near miss" into a "direct hit" with the earth. But we can not sit around and worry, we have to get on with the business of living life.

Stay inspired my friends.

Five Steps

"You just have to keep on doing what you do. It's the lesson I get from my husband; he just says, Keep going. Start by starting." -Meryl Streep

In a previous article titled In-Between Bits, I wrote about how nice it would be to start towards a goal and than immediately cross the finish. There would be so much we could accomplish if we could do away with all of the "in-between bits" of life.

If we are unable to skip all of that, maybe there is an easy way to get to where we want to be. So I started searching for ways to get me faster from the START of something to the FINISH of it. I wanted to know what the shortest distance was between having a goal and achieving it.

Somehow I stumbled upon the realization that there are only "five steps" to accomplish anything. There were of course three-step programs, seven-step plans, ten-step courses, and even one-step curriculums to get you there faster.

By far it seemed that the shortest route would take five steps though. There are five steps to fighting stress, five steps to accomplishing my goals, and five steps safer health care. Lucky for me, there are five step programs to better fitness, or to building my network of business contacts.

I found five steps to choosing child care and my grown adult children would be bemused to wonder why I'm looking for child care, (just doing research). There are only five steps to painless inventory management. I can only imagine what pain must be felt when trying to manage inventory.

To help me write better, there are five steps to writing argument essays, which will convince you I am correct in what this blog article is saying. Or I could take five easy steps and solve Europe's debt crisis.

There are only five steps to configuring privacy on Google Plus, great putting in golf, marketing my website, or to giving quality interviews. And if it were to happen by some strange medical oddity, I can be ready in five steps to have a healthy pregnancy

What is it about the number five? What is so significant about this one number?

The number five in religion is referred to as the Five Holy Wounds or Five Sacred Wounds that are believed to be the five piercing wounds that was suffered during the crucifixion of Jesus.

In ancient Greece, philosophers such as Aristotle believed the universe was made up of five elements: water, earth, air, fire, and ether. In radio communication, the term "five by five" is used to indicate perfect signal strength and clarity.

If you look at the keyboard (non touch screen users), nearly all devices with a numeric keypad (telephones, computers, etc.), the five key has a raised dot or raised bar to make typing easier. Knowing where that key is you can easily find the other numbers surrounding it.

I dug even deeper and found that a large majority of mammals, amphibians and reptiles have 5 fingers and/or toes on each extremity. Heck, we as humans have five appendages from the torso: two arms, two legs, and a head.

There are five oceans in the world, the Atlantic, Arctic, Indian, Pacific, and Antartic. We have five senses: Sight, Smell, Hearing, Touch, and Taste. And there are five basic tastes: Sweet, Salty, Sour, Bitter, and Savory.

Maybe not perfectly and possibly with an accent, but I can say five in different languages such as Spanish (Cinco), French (Cinq), Italian (Cinque), German (Fünf), and Dutch (Vijf).

Confucius even said, "To practice five things under all circumstances constitutes perfect virtue; these five are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness."

After all of my research though there was an important and overriding thing I learned. Regardless of how many steps we believe are needed to accomplish something in life, there is one that is the most important. That one and most important step is your first one.

So whether you are looking to start a five-step, ten-step or even do the two-step (random two-step dance video), begin your journey with that first step.

Shiny Things

“It is not needful for our dreams to be very grand nor very big. It is only needful for our dreams to be very shiny.” ― C. JoyBell C.

We have some very good friends that are absolutely wonderful people. We share meals and coffee, laughter and pensive moments both with this couple. They are just what friends are supposed to be.

A couple of months ago, the wife part of this couple had cancer reappear after laying dormants for twenty plus years. It has been a roller coaster of emotions and health to say the least. With the radiation treatments she is undergoing along with her chemo, the inevitable loss of hair has started.

So one day my wife and her were talking about the loss of hair. She was tired of the clumps and general care needed. For most every woman I have known, hair is a very personal thing. But to combat it, she had made the decision to shave it all off. Jokingly she told my wife that a hair appointment would be made for her as well.

My wife got to thinking about this and thought maybe this could be a nice way to show support for our friend. Again, doing something such as this is not something anyone would take lightly. My wife thought heavily and seriously about her decision. She made her decision to stand in support of her friend, it was final.

So all of her beautiful blond locks were removed and her hair was shipped off to another great place called Locks of Love. I recommend you find out more about this organization to see the great work they do.

As for my wife, she now has a shiny skin-covered noggin that beams forth in beauty. If you look up the definition of the word noggin, it not only means "one's head" but it was originally meant to describe a "small cup or mug."

This got me to thinking that my wife's gift of shaving her head was not just a shiny bald head in support and encouragement of her friend. It was more like a "small cup" of kindness filled with great promise and miracles. It is a shiny cup filled with dreams and visions for a long and wonderful life.

Just maybe it is not the shiny new head but this shiny cup of wonder that each of us need to carry around in life. A small or large cup of hope, kindness, promises and dreams that will lift us beyond what is trying to hold us back today.

I say order up a cup of the shiny dreams you want fulfilled in your life. Carry it around with you and see that miracles can occur.

Getting Over the Bridge

"When a decision has to be made suddenly, experience and gut feeling is sometimes all you can go with." -Joseph Primm

Here I was coming up I-278 towards the interchange with I-87 near the borough of Manhattan in New York City. If I successfully navigated this during rush hour, I would successfully make it out to my hotel in Teterboro, NJ. I wasn't worried because getting lost doesn't phase me too much, just the idea of not figuring it out would have bothered me.

So negotiating the various lanes, lack of signs and a 'general' map of the route, instinct had to work. I had prepared or so I thought, the maps looked rather easy but sometimes reality is a bit more harsh. Life tends to be that way most times as well.

We plan and plan, writing down on paper those goals in perfect order. If we do this first, exit to the right here and cross over the bridge to the next step; then everything will work out perfectly. But than you come to the interchange of I-87 and I-95, looking for exit 7S. Check out the map and then see what the reality is.

You and I both have had dreams for what we wanted our lives to be. Each of us held onto those visions and were working slowly towards them. Life than got in the way, the reality of circumstance and failed decisions.

What do you do when that happens and life needs you to be in the left lane when in fact your trapped in the right hand lane? What do you do when all of a sudden there are multiple exit choices and no proper signs to guide you? What happens if the GPS on your life conks out and a decision has to be made now?

You trust in yourself and simply make a decision. You go with that and adjust from it. The traffic in my life prevented me from going the original direction I wanted to. I couldn't get over into that left lane and my life took a vastly different course. So I took the road handed to me, adjusted my plans and moved on.

The destination may look different, but it is one filled with happiness and contentment. I made a decision not to force myself back into the left lane. My experience and gut feeling told me to go ahead and stay in the lane and take that course. It took me to where I needed to be, it got me across the George Washington Bridge and my best life.

You can achieve your best life, a happy life even when faced with making a quick decision. Let your instincts guide you when needed, prepare at other times, but take the road and let it lead you to your destination in life.