excitement

Passion Is In Fashion!

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I like to live dangerously!  The thrill of zip-lining, or the rush of rock climbing.  Running a marathon.  Hiking through Europe.  Bike stunts.  Skateboarding tricks.  My goodness there are so many exhilarating moments!  Hot air balloon rides and white water rafting!  Honestly, the list is endless.  I am quite the daredevil and proud of it.  Hopefully, through my brave, adventurous life, you too will find that hidden childhood desire and live an inspiring and fulfilled life like I do.  Oh, by the way, I have never done any of these listed things, but I do find ways to live on the edge.

I ate bacon four times last week.  Yes, yes, I did and I’m not ashamed to brag about it.  Do you know what else?  I had a sunny side up fried egg to go with it.  There was also toast AND, oh yeah, it was buttered.  Booyah!  How do you like me now?  Uh huh.  I know.  I can almost palpably feel your envy at my exploits into endangerment.  Why am I being so foot loose and fancy free?

As a child I remember being unencumbered by my mortality.  I am sure you have seen kidlets jumping on a bed…up and down, and up and down, and…oops…BANG!  Too close to the edge.  Some bawling, either from actually bumping their head or just the shock of being misplaced.  Other than that they learn that they need to stay closer into the middle.  Lesson learned and more fun to be had.  How about the one year old that stands on the couch pulling at the blinds?  Yup, you know where this is going.  What makes them do such dumb things?

Are they dumb?  To us adults we can all become the Amazing Kreskin and foresee what shall happen (due to our own misfortunes and miscalculations), but to them it’s about exploring life.  That couch is their Mount Everest!  That bed is their trampoline!  Nowadays children have be monitored 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  There is no longer places for them to play alone.   They can’t even go play on the jungle gym at the park without adult supervision.  I actually feel sorry for them.  Sorry that they can’t have that freedom of adventure that we had as children.

I believe my days in the summer went something like this:  wake up and have breakfast.  Out of the house so that my mother could clean.  Meet with kids in the neighbourhood and play until someone’s mother called for them.  Lunchtime!  Rush home.  Eat lunch.  Run out the door again to play.  Someone would hear the holler of dinnertime and again…home to be fed and then out to play.  No adults were with us.  No teenagers were with us.  We got to goof off and do silly things like fall out of trees or go wandering around the forest and be amazed to see a dead rabbit.  (Two little bites in the neck.  We thought there were vampires nearby).  We would come home sweaty, dusty, or muddy… and exhausted.

As we became adults the “fun” goofy things were replaced by order and rules.  School had rules.  Jobs had rules.  Society had rules.  So many rules and so little place to have fun.  We are told, in many different ways, how we should think and what we should believe.  Commercials tell us what will make us happiest.  Buy their product and your life will be full of sunshine, roses, and unicorns.  Ahhhhh…how great our lives will be.

Weird thing is, and you might have noticed this, it seems that this is kind of where we become like children again.  We beg and pine for something and know that our lives will be incredible once we get it.  That “it” could be anything from something expensive like a car or something as simple as a hamburger.  Now, if you really think about it, that lasts for a bit and then suddenly, it’s not good enough.  There is something else you absolutely need in order to make your life the happiest thing ever!  In most cases, the feeling goes away quite quickly.  How can you change this?

Find your inner happiness.  Find your inner love.  Once you find that crazy happy place, the world around you will seem so much better.  It won’t matter what material things you have because the rest of the world will just seem so much more beautiful, colourful, alive.  Those “rose-coloured glasses” of your youth were removed by well-meaning adults, but it’s time for you to put those on again.  The world is a remarkable place, but we tend to look at what is missing in our lives and not what we already have.

Live with passion!  Live with a sense of excitement!  Find out what makes you happy and do it!  Who cares what other people think!  Those who live with a sense of adventure, spirit, and joy are the ones who are finding that gold nugget of excitement in their lives.  PASSION IS IN FASHION!

P.S.  Did I mention that egg was fried in the bacon fat?  Oh yeah…I’m living recklessly.

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To Be or Not To Be…Alone

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I remember hearing about people who were trying to “find themselves”.   Mostly it was people criticizing other people and I, as a child, did not know what it meant.  In our day it meant you were escaping responsibility.  Fast forward years later and I finally understand what that means.  Some of you may have already done this, purposely or accidentally, but for those of you who have not yet reached the precipice, I shall try to explain this phenomenon.

I do not claim to know the answers.  I believe life is a constant journey.  There are so many things we experience and live through.  Things we thought were super stressful in our teens seemed like blessings in our twenties.  Stuff we thought was tough in our twenties became insignificant in our thirties.  I am getting closer to my fifties and am appreciating the desire for people to support one another and fight for equality.  I watch and summarize it as:  One generation wanting peace and love for everyone.

If everyone finally looked around and said, “Hey…you’re ok!” we could all work, live, and be happy together.  However, the most important thing is loving yourself.  Every religion tells you that and many of us choose to ignore it because it seems selfish.  I was raised hearing this:   Love your neighbour as yourself.  For some reason, most of us, or all of us, missed the memo.  Love yourself?   YES!  It sounds so strange, but once you start living it (yup, through “finding yourself”) it’s amazing how much better all your relationships become after that.

One of the reasons I bring this is up is because I believe in the power of love.  I believe in the power of positive thinking.  I believe that everything will be good in your life as long as you believe it will be ok.  How did I get here?  I finally debated about “to be or not to be…” alone.  That led me to decide that I needed time to be alone, to “find myself”.  Why?  I needed to think about what my thoughts were.  Negative?  Positive?  How did I view my surroundings?

I realized that most of my life was about helping others.  I needed the approval and praise of others to feel my self-worth.  Yup, that’s where the needed “alone time” came in.  Spend time with yourself and your thoughts and find out how you feel about yourself and how you can improve on your self-love.

DON’T SAY:

  • It’s impossible and I can’t do this!

YOU CAN!

  • It’s too hard!

YOU ARE STRONG!  YOU HAVE THE POWER!

VERY, VERY IMPORTANT NOTE:  DO NOT LISTEN OR BELIEVE IN WHAT “APPEARS” REAL.  WE DO HAVE INNER POWERS AND STRENGTH AS LONG AS WE SAY:  “I CAN DO THIS!”

As children we were excited about everything.  Dandelions were roses to us!  Mud was extravagant!  Butterflies were miracles!  Sadly, along the way to adulthood, we were told to believe in hard facts, not fiction.  This is why I love children.  They are still so pure and  non-judgemental.  They can see the beauty in everyday life.  I dare you to try and wake up everyday and say I LOVE MY LIFE!  Most often, we DO forget to see all the good we have.  We have this idea that we need more “stuff” in order to make us happy.  Bigger houses, better cars, expensive clothing, etc.

Have you ever stopped to actually say, “Wow…I actually have so many wonderful things in my life.”  No.  And why not?  I think it’s because once we get something that we believe will make us happier, we realize it didn’t, so then we have to start looking for something else that will make us happy.

Which brings me right back to be being alone or not being alone.  If you really love yourself, you can look in a mirror and actually think you are wonderful.  If you love yourself then no one can bring you down.  That self-love provides such a glorious barrier to all the negative in the world.  If someone belittles you (which many workplaces or families do), it won’t matter.  If you love yourself, you can actually start loving others.  You will see that everyone is here to have fun!  It’s not all about work and getting things.  It’s about getting excited and trying new stuff.  (Like axe throwing…very excited about doing that!)  It’s about knowing that you can wish for things and believing they can happen.  If you love yourself, you will find more beauty in everything around you.  The trees will seem greener, the flowers will seem brighter, the birds will sound happier.  (Hmmm, maybe this is how people on drugs feel.  lol!)

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Is this being selfish?  Absolutely YES!  But if everyone was doing it, this would be such a magical world!  For those of you who meditate or do yoga or take long baths…kudos to you!  You know that by healing yourself with happiness and love you can, not only survive in this bizarre world, but you will thrive.  You will start enjoying life and living as you did when you were a child.  Find that happy place again.  You won’t regret it.

DEDICATION:  For those of you who are accustomed to my fantastically humorous ways, I wanted to let you know that I have someone, whom I love so much, and who needs added love and support for a “dis-ease” she has.  I know she will survive and thrive because she is a happy, loving, beautiful person, and she is making her own reality using love and positive focus.  Most importantly, she knows she is not alone and will never be alone.

P.S.  To my beautiful Sarmie, love conquers all.  You are beautiful, you are loving, you are…above all…greatly LOVED!  NEVER EVER FORGET IT!

 

 

 

On Your Mark, Get Set…JUMP!

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Every fall season seems like a new beginning, at least to me it does.  Many people tend to disagree with me as the natural and most popular rebirth season is spring.  You know, the whole winter thaw, new flowers bloom, trees start to get their leaves, the birds come back from winter hiatus. Although the season after summer has its own life beginning and life changing intrigues, please ponder the following.

A four-year old child.  This child has been at home or at a daycare.  Turning four means that they are going to big people school, a.k.a. kindergarten.  School all day.  There are activity tables that can be comprised of any of the following:  drawing, painting, water, crayons.  There are dolls so they can play house or doctor or whatever else pops into their little four-year old minds.  There is a teacher.  There are other kids who will be playing with them and calling them “friend”.  There are crafts that they will do with their teacher.  Scary?  A little.  It’s different from the usual.  Exciting and a little overwhelming, but they are ready to jump in.

Transition again from kindergarten to grade one.  Very different.  Your own desk and projects to do.  There is this thing called homework.  There will be tests.  Will you still have your kindergarten friends in your class or will there be new people?  Ready, set…jump in.

Let’s go higher up….grade 8.  Last year of middle school.  After this year there is a progression to high school.  What will your last year be like?  You are a senior…in middle school anyway.

Minor Niner.  Welcome to high school.  Quite a traumatic experience as there will be many new students and many of your old friends won’t be in your classes this year.  There are semesters and many more tests and challenges; especially the desire to fit in.  This will all be recorded in the yearbook.  What courses should you take?  Where will go after high school?  University?  College?  A trade?  A job?  Again, many decisions.  Life through school is very nerve-wracking.  It’s determining who you are.  Many people will be there in the shaping and moulding of your life.   You won’t realize it at the time, but looking back, you will see who and what influenced your life.

Now, let’s say you didn’t finish high school.  Where did your life take you?  Did you go into the workforce?  Did you travel?  Did you move out on your own from the house you grew up in?  What made you take a leap of faith and move into the direction you moved?

It’s fall again.  The older I get, the more I want to take more time for myself and my dreams.  I believe I am in the fall of my life.  There are brilliant explosions of colours (my desires) running through my mind.  There are changes I want in my life.  There are things I was always afraid to do because I thought I would be criticized or laughed at.  It doesn’t matter anymore.  Now, it’s my opinion of myself and my self-love that will make me succeed.  Fear of failure?

Failure now has a new definition. To me the definition of failure means that I didn’t try something new as opposed to trying and not having it end up perfectly.  Perfection is quite subjective.  Depends on who is looking at it.

In the fall of my life I have decided to take a job that would put me much farther from home.  It’s a position I have some knowledge about, but there will be much new learning.  Excited?  Absolutely.  Scared?   Strangely, not really.  I am totally confident in my ability to learn.  I know that I can do anything.  There is no fear of failure.  Is that a bad thing?  I am not sure.  I know when I used to perform on stage the nervousness before was part and parcel of a good, confident performance.  Over confidence usually meant something would go wrong.  Is that the same with jobs?  Perhaps.  I am not afraid to ask for help.  Pride is the only thing that could hurt me.  I like my new vision of life and all that change can hold for me.  The need to try new things is exhilarating instead of frightening.  I am happy to have swallowed my dreaded fear of failure.

I am certain that with change there will be hurtful experiences in my life.  Daring to try new things, even if it means failure, proves that I  have stepped outside my comfort zone and into the realm of the adventurous.  My desire to learn and experience new things is keeping my life exciting and exhilarating and that is how I believe life should be lived.

Hurrah for me!

On your mark…get set…jump in!