After much searching, maybe you’ve come to the conclusion that it’s much better to just be who you are. I really believe you won’t embrace change until you get to the end of the search.
At the end of a search you should be tired, maybe sick and tired.
I know that many will not go here. They’d rather escape or medicate. It’s sad when a life, brief as it is, is made up in a spiral of dead ends.
Here are 5 reasons to just be who you are:
You will run out of time. You, me, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, and everyone else has this in common.
Heaven knows we don’t need any more actors or actresses. I’ve given some Oscar-worthy performances in my life and they left me with nothing.
The secret of success is found in being who you are. Warning here, the world you live in probably has a cheap imitation to offer. If you’re not careful, you could be fooled.
The world is starving for it. With so many people neck deep in their own kingdom building, people are looking for the “real thing.” Many wonder if it really exists any longer. Hope is found in authenticity.
You could find out why God made you. How wonderful! This is a connection you shouldn’t underestimate.
You’ve got plans, I’ve got plans. Most of these plans relate to the future. It’s a future that no one can be certain of. Watch out for those who say otherwise.
What about now?
You can be certain about now. The now is 100% certain. Are you shocked by how little attention we pay to it? The now is often treated as a person we meet at a party, who might be the best connection we could make, but we’re preoccupied with the anticipated arrival of the beautiful one. Always looking past to get to something else.
Do you find yourself looking past your now?
I understand many will wait and let life come crashing in with some big disruption, before turning their heads. The irony is we’re warned every day to live now. Few heed this because of an arrogance marketing and innovation often produce. And by the way, it’s not the fault of marketing and innovation. The fault lies with us. We pervert and corrupt, in order to convince ourselves the lies are true. Even Eric Schmidtdeclared that robots will one day be omnipresent in our lives. Into the future we go, be damn the warped logic. Humans doing what humans do.
Is it time to pay attention to the now?
I search out each day to find beauty and wonder. Yes, it is soft and it is an art. That’s one way I embrace my now. I also own it. If I’m going to be surprised by an impromptu appearance by death or some debilitating disease, I want to be found in my now. Mine equals ownership and all the responsibility that comes with it.
Here are some things that are found in the now:
God
Beauty
Love
Music
Breakthroughs
Tolerance
Understanding
True Hope
Success
Integrity
Planning for the future can be virtuous, but not being able to stop in the now is a recipe for distraction and regret. I know you’ve heard this before. Thing is, you and I are terminal, we should live that way.
I’ve always wanted to be a success at life. Even when I got off the path in younger years, I knew being a success at life would be important, if not essential.
I took a trip up to the balcony and looked down on the stage of my one-man show recently. It was a telling experience. In my core I am succeeding at life. Of course, no perfection and I always remember that I must keep it real everyday. I dare not forget this. Just the same, I was able to see how my life has been aligned and shaped for what I write here.
I don’t believe in security, comfort and ease. Even when I desire it, I realize those states are mirages. We were not made to set up our destiny based on what seems to be or what we wish for. There is a destiny made for us, and it doesn’t fight to own our souls. Real destiny calls out to us in a whisper. It is an invitation from God. Success at life provides the right canvas for our destiny to shine through.
The problem here in America is we keep trying to exhaust what we can find under the sun. History has seen this before. A population mesmerized by marketing and the physical. You’d think we were divine. I hate to be the rain on the parade. Life is a limited time opportunity.
“…the fierce urgency of now.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
Sometimes the calculator can be your best friend. Today I decided to do an exercise long overdue.
I added up the sum of my days on this planet we call earth. That number turned out to be 15,492 days. Birth, school yard wonder, working for a living, falling in love, and being found by the vision. What a statement in a time when we have little time to stop and think.
The numbering of your days is important. The following are my reasons for embracing the miracle and exercise:
Numbering your days sobers you. We can get drunk on success, materials and prestige
Legacy is defined by what I leave behind. For the purposes of this post, what I leave behind as a father. A friend told a few weeks back that he could see my legacy through my work (writing, engagements, etc.). Funny how you sometimes don’t think about those types of things when you’re in the midst. It’s still vitally important, regardless.
My friend also recognized that all people have a legacy. He even believes more world problems would be solved if more understood the implications of their legacy. I agree and way too many don’t even consider it.
I want to leave the following behind for my kids:
A sense that I understand the “fierce urgency of now.” The idea that now matters, problems matter, the fight matters.
Love until it hurts. Much of life will be measured by this.
There’s nothing wrong with making a mistake or failing. Go ahead and risk being laughed at.
Find out what God made you to do. This is destiny and it’s worth the pursuit.
People matter and they deserve your respect.
Position yourself for good luck.
Never let the child in you die.
I love their mother, in my words and my actions.
You must always speak up when evil seeks to silence.
Mindfulness opens the door to loving God.
I’m sure there are more things I want them catch, and not catch. The list represents the lens I see through today.
Yoga. There are so many benefits in practicing yoga, I could stop here and let you do your own research. But I won’t do that because I want to give you some insight into my experiences with yoga. Here are some random thoughts:
Yoga has improved my blood pressure
Yoga has help center me
Yoga has sharpened my focus on the personhood of God
Yoga has built my strength and flexibility
Yoga has quieted my obsessive mind
Yoga has helped my overall wellbeing
Yoga has played a major role in my epic living
Yoga has challenged me mentally, physically and spiritually
Yoga has helped me see the importance of nutrition
Yoga has become a habit
I am no where close to being a master of this art. I am, however evidence of the power that comes from practicing yoga. Talk to your doctor about the risks and rewards, then start slow.
“Consider for example, and thou wilt find that almost all of the transactions in the time of Vespasian differed little from those of the present day. Thou there findest marrying and giving in marriage, educating children, sickness, death, war, joyous holidays, traffic, agriculture, flatterers, insolent pride, suspicions, laying of plots, longing for the death of others, newsmongers, lovers, misers, men canvassing for the consulship and for the kingdom;—yet all these passed away, and are nowhere.” – Marcus Aurrelius
I’ve spent a good deal of my life operating under the sun, sometimes even exclusively. Can you relate? The pursuit of things that you think have never been pursued before. When I was thirty-five I believed I ruled the world. I thought I was breaking new ground. The truth was others had been there before me, and there were younger men who were waiting to take my place. It wasn’t until I made my daily focus about living over the sun that true living began. I don’t consider what happened before to be a waste. It was learning and it didn’t happen overnight.
The quote from Marcus Aurellius was written somewhere around 170 AD. Interestingly, many of us are still trying to prove him wrong. See Sheryl Sandberg, Jeff Bezos, Sir Richard Branson, Will Smith, and the list goes on. My post is not an indictment of those people or their human achievement. My post is really about achievement, but with a different motivation. It’s the motivation of living over the sun.
I have been greatly influenced by Solomon and the biblical accounts of his life. Most specifically, the accounts found in the Book of Ecclesiastes. You can read his journal there for yourself. On some quiet nights I am haunted by his words found there. Solomon had more and tried more than most men ever will, including the vaunted list above. Yet we (mankind) press on, and on. We’re a culture that believes in the exception. The arrogance that somehow sees itself above history. Solomon was right when he said:
“God has placed in the heart of men, eternity.”
That is what I’m trying to convey here; the idea of eternity, the idea of over the sun. Over the sun takes you to a place where what you do matters here and in eternity. Eternity is in heaven and it is on earth. Eternity will record my apology to my son today. It will go into his future and the future being recorded for my ears ahead. In short, what I do matters. Now, before we get too sentimental, eternity will also record all of my stressing over what I have no control over. Gulp. Fortunately, there is a cross powerful enough to deal with my good, my bad and my ugly.
The following are some reasons why you and I should operate over the sun, along with some reasons why we shouldn’t operate under it. Keep in mind this is about your thinking and your actions. It’s worth considering, even if my words make me a madman in your book.
Operating over the sun puts other people first. This is a sweet reality for mankind. I hear a beautiful melody in my ear and head as I write this. Putting people first always results in something that lasts forever.
Operating under the sun is all about you. Your career, your money, who you can manipulate, who you can control, and all the other agendas a lifetime can hold.
Operating over the sun is where we find sustainable happiness. The actions are those rooted in the simple and the beautiful. It’s a place of where you are surprised by what each day brings, and you don’t mind it, happy or sad.
Operating under the sun is about deceit. The implication here is self-deceit. Under the sun we convince ourselves that one more drink, one more deal, or one more relationship will satisfy. And as Marcus and Solomon found, it won’t deliver the promised outcome.
Operating over the sun is where we find the personhood of God.
As I noted earlier in the week, this post is coming to shed some light on a long journey. The journey about the process of remaking a man. That man would be me.
It's been quite a process, this remaking dance.
I was out running a few mornings back and was listening to the Rush song Subdivisions. The following lyric held my mind as body continued to move:
Some will sell their dreams for small desires Or lose the race to rats Get caught in ticking traps And start to dream of somewhere To relax their restless flight Somewhere out of a memory of lighted streets on quiet nights…
I'm still running and Coldplay's Viva La Vida appears on my iPod. This verse freezes me once again:
One minute I held the key Next the walls were closed on me And I discovered that my castles stand Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand
As I was heading home I remembered a former boss. I hated him. He wasn't very kind, would embarrass me publicly and easily looked passed me. But he kept me because I made him and the organization money. It was a bad situation to be knee-deep in. But I was, with things moving fast and no time to step back.
In 2005, a coup was set in motion and I was a willing agent. Made friends with the devil for short time and he got what was coming. I rejoiced at his removal. Never thought about his struggle or his family or his grappling with a job search. I thought justice had been served.
What the hell was I doing?
Close to a year later I was on the receiving end of what my former boss got. Just rewards you might think. Maybe so. In the end, my life would never be the same again.
And here's why:
I've chronicled in this blog a lot about my journey. Sometimes in bits and pieces, sometimes in focused light. Maybe I've made this clear, but I needed to be remade. I needed a new operating system.
God gave me an operating system when I was much younger and I chose to add and take away. I guess I felt the pressure to do it my way. You know, feeling like God could use some help. A little more salt, please. The reality was rooted in my deep fear that in the end I was ultimately on my own. This was a lie I felt was true, due to the circumstances (family, society, career, business, whatever).
Ironically, I moved to a space where God could find me vulnerable with no exits. It was not my plan to do this I fully believe that my story is rooted in God wanting to catch me and transform me. That reality is bigger than entrepreneurship, writing a book, material success, and all the other bragging rights we often crave. What happened to me is not unlike what many a man and women have faced at one time or another.
Some have asked, and wondered without speaking, why my last seven years has been such a struggle, a desert. I wish I had an answer that could wrap everything in a box with red ribbon. My story is not that story. My story resembles people like Nebuchadnezzar, Paul, or maybe you. Men and women who have to go through a remake that is humbling, painful, frustrating, confusing, and in the end beautiful.
So I don't know if I will make money online, be a top 10 blog, write a best-selling book, or create the next "killer app." I am certain I becoming more of a man who's working on becoming what God intended. The other has its place. One thing is clear to me though, I am dancing with my Epic life instead of looking out there and wondering what it feels like.
Celebrating the best of the Epic Living Blog, 2012. Enjoy!
I was 14 in June, 1980. Life was a series of things to get over and get past in those days for me. My grandmother had passed the summer before, my parents had been threatening each other with divorce and my brother was on a path that would surely lead to deep destruction.
It was an early morning in June. Like any morning would be for those who slept the night before.
Things can change.
I awoke on that June morning (don't remember the date) to find our house full of people. I didn't know at the time that those people were police detectives and forensic scientists. It was surreal as I walked down the hall to find my mom and dad. I found my mom sitting in a chair in the living room with eyes that had certainly been crying. I asked in a slow, muted tone, about all the people and what was going on. She proceeded to tell me that my brother was suspected of murdering his girlfriend.
What?
Everything was different now and the months and years ahead would be shaped by something irreversible and tragic. After the police, and even TV news crews, had departed, I saw my dad standing at our front door, just staring motionless.
I felt alone.
In the time sense much has changed and much is still the same. For me, as I look back now, I have discovered why I feel things so deeply, why I have such an urgency about living and why I am an entrepreneur (risk-taker). It has nothing to do with a resume or a career. It has everything to do with getting on with what you've been shaped and called to do. I realized early that the table do turn and even if prepration fails you, you must find a way to recover. I guess on that early morning in June, I realized that safety as advertised was an illusion.
There is no doubt that these traits have gotten me into troube, but I have always seen how God took the good and the bad and shaped them into something I can only describe as art-beautiful art. And even though I've matured and learned about appropriate risk, I also know that strength comes from good things and bad. I wouldn't have it any other way.
An early moring in June is still a part of my destiny. It broke me, grew me and sets a course that my DNA is written all over. My hope is it plays to a backdrop of change.
Thought about my dad today and what God takes away. Certainly that implies that something, or someone, was given. I see that now.
As I was processing, I asked myself why I would still be writing about him. It has been almost 4 years now. For all I know, you might even be thinking why. Your first inclination might be to look at me as a grieving son or someone that has unresolved issues. All may be true, but I also thought of you. At the risk of sounding redundant, much of what I write turns toward you. As it should be…by way of experience.
Are you in a place, in the living years, where you can't resolve the unresolved? Still fighting, still fighting back what you'd prefer to forget?
I guess I feel that my process of dealing with my dad's living and dying was for a purpose deeper than the loss of a human life. I know that I'm not alone. On more than one occasion I've had people write me to say they've been watching my journey. We live in a crowded world, so if Ed says he was watching, then I know it was for a good reason. I guess this post is for those that have never raised their hands.
My gut tells me some of you may be fighting an un-winnable war.
In the vast majority of my life with my dad I was entangled and by the time I became an adult I was too arrogant and angry to resolve it. I was warned, but I pressed on. My mistake. I eventually did make it right, but man it seems like it would have been sweeter to get there earlier. Could be revisionist history or a longing to have a chance for a "do-over." I'm ok, though, I'm still moving forward. He is pleased, I know.
Ok, what's the un-winnable war:
Anger toward someone (wife, ex-wife, friend, parent, etc.) that eats you from the inside out. Many times my wife and kids felt this with me. I have nothing to show for my investment, nothing.
Resignation that it won't get any better. Damn it, most everything can get better if we let it!
Making someone into someone they can never be. I spent years of hating my dad while trying to please him. He wasn't a bad man, just trapped in his own web unable to say and do something a son longed for.
Pretending that love isn't in your heart. A form of protection I suppose. Ironically, I found out after he passed that I do love him.
You don't control as much as you think you do. God has every right to take away, and we have the responsibility to make the most of the time we're given. Be careful here. Are you gambling that you have time? Are you thinking you can get to it later?
