Tag: life changing

Wining streak.

We, you, and I are the summation of all of our life experiences. For better or for worse we are where we are at in our lives based upon the multitude of our life’s choices internal, external, and the things that we have absolutely no control over. I came to that realization after walking on the beach earlier this year when I needed to brush the sand off of my feet. The beach aka our health looks like one big giant homogenous thing from a distance when in reality its made up of millions of tiny grains of sand aka life choices when you look a little closer.

A beach just like our overall health and well being grows/diminishes over time oftentimes so slowly that you don’t notice for months or years that things are looking a little different. And oftentimes when you do finally see a difference the change is so big that doing anything to fix it seems like an insurmountable task. This is where the old adage of how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time comes into play. When you’re faced with a huge task in your life the best thing you can do for yourself is do a quick OODA loop.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop#:~:text=The%20OODA%20loop%20is%20the,operational%20level%20during%20military%20campaigns.

Find something small and readily easy to accomplish and get going. When you start small and get an early win that massive obstacle starts to look a little smaller and easier to overcome. Just like it took thousands of choices to get to the point before we realized there was an issue it’s going to take thousands of choices before we ever see a noticeable difference.

It’s taken me 5 years’ worth of mostly positive choices to get to where I am today after years of poor choices. An almost 40-year-old in above-average physical condition. I can run fast, climb boulders and do a ton of pull-ups, and surf a 5’7 lis fish. I’m not going to win ultra-distance races, climb a v6+ boulder (extremely difficult) or break any pull-up records, or get sponsored. And you know what? I don’t give a damn about any of those things. What I care about is having fun, sharing those passions with my kids, and most importantly stacking up one good decision on top of another so hopefully my health/wellbeing stays clean so I can do all of those things for years to come.

External forces remember those from the opening paragraph? I’m not naive, We can make all the right choices when it comes to diet, exercise, and the thousand other variables in our life and still get side-swiped by disease, or for that matter, an actual car could take us out. Life isn’t fair, we’ve talked about this multiple times over in the blog, and that’s why the occasional slice of pizza or Christmas dessert is fine by me. We aren’t promised tomorrow but like the 96-year-old man that I see walking the neighborhood often likes to say 

” I woke up alive again today, I’m putting together one hell of a streak.”

My why in video format.

Yesterday I wrote about “concepts” and the two things that are constant in life. The first was, Change is constant and the second is things fall apart. Shortly after I posted that video I was looking at My Facebook page and my mom shared the following video. I know I ask you to do a lot of things but I really think this is the easiest and maybe the most impactful way to show you the message that I’m trying to get across. Watch till the end and grab some tissues.

Epic, right? It made me tear up a little bit as well. I could not have scripted a better advertisement of why I make the decisions that I do every single day and why I’m trying to encourage others to make similar long term life choices as well. Life has very few constants as I mentioned earlier, Things are going to change and eventually all things fall apart and don’t function quite like they used to. We have the power in our daily choices to slow down the progression of the later of the two constants, Were never going to stop the aging process with any amount of superfoods and kettlebell exercises but the choices you make today, tomorrow, and 30 years from now could keep you around and active for your loved ones.

Involved or Committed??

There’s a popular quote from John F. Kennedy that says. “one man can make a difference – and that every man should try.“

Pretty epic wisdom if you ask me. If I suddenly start to care more about the environment my individual impact isn’t going to add up to much. But if my neighbor starts listening to me and then his neighbor listens to him by the time we get 10 houses down were starting a trend.

There are two problems with that quote. We only got a small portion of the entire statement and perhaps the biggest blunder, JFK probably didn’t say it or at least historians haven’t been able to find proof that he did. The more likely author of that quote is his wife Jacqueline Kennedy for a piece on his memorial Library in 1964.

Here’s the entire quote.

“John Kennedy believed so strongly that one’s aim should not just be the most comfortable life possible, but that we should all do something to right the wrongs we see, and not just complain about them. We owe that to our country, and our country will suffer if we don’t serve her. He believed that one man can make a difference – and that every man should try.“

I read that statement and by the end thought to myself. Holy crap where has this entire quote been hiding for more than half a century and why was the last sentence singled out as the most valuable?

None of that matters now, I’ve read it and now you have as well. WHAT ARE WE/I GOING TO DO ABOUT IT??? You cant Ctrl, Alt Delete that from your memory bank. We/I need to live that mission every single day as the success of our planet relies on our collective work now more than ever.

Relentless dedication to something small…

There are about a half dozen ideas I have that kicking around in my head on how I can change the world or better yet things I like to complain about but haven’t taken enough time or effort to do something about. 

I’m ready to do something about that now as I realize that I am not fully living up to the words that Jacqueline graced us with. Sure I feel like I am an involved and conscientious member of this planet but being halfway committed to change isn’t going to cut it anymore.

Lets each pick one small thing we are passionate about and make a promise to each other that we will take action daily to educate ourselves, speak up about injustice and rather than complain about it we will work towards building a stronger global community.

Call to Action

Have you ever heard of the parable of inviting the Chicken and the Pig To breakfast? The chicken will bring eggs to breakfast, he is involved as he can come back again tomorrow. The pig on the other hand is committed, when he brings home the bacon he isn’t coming back tomorrow.

Go out there and be the change the world needs and get out there and stay committed. Change is hard and dirty work but lucky for us pigs like those sorts of things.