Tag: inspiration

Lightning in the Bottle

In just the last 12 hours, I have experienced three truly inspirational stories. Last night, my husband and I watched the National Geographic special about Alex Honnold, the first man to climb El Capitan in Yosemite, free solo style (meaning no ropes!). Having just been to Yosemite this past summer, I cannot imagine how dangerous and terrifying that climb would have been and the fact that Alex achieved it, is almost miraculous. El Capitan was only successfully first climbed by climbers with ropes in 1958!

This morning, my husband was filling me in on a conference he just attended and he told me about one of the most inspirational speakers he has ever seen at one of these conferences. The speaker was Jon Derenbos, a former NFL long snapper, now turned magician who was a finalist and a fan and judge favorite, on my daughter’s favorite TV show, America’s Got Talent. What is truly amazing about this accomplished man, is all of the adversity he has overcome in his life, including the fact that his father brutally murdered his mother, he spent a year in foster care, and Jon has had to have open heart surgery, even though he is only in his thirties. Still, he is living his dream-life, expecting his first child with his wife, performing magic all over the world, and Jon now has a book and a major motion picture coming out about his life.

Also, this morning, when I was reading the news, I read the very emotional and thankful tribute that LeBron James gave to Michael Jordan, after superseding Michael’s all-time NBA points record. He talked about what an inspiration Michael Jordan was to him and all of his friends, as Lebron beat the odds out of poverty to become the great that he is in the game of basketball and in the calling of his Life. Donning Air Jordans with “Thank You M.J.” written on the side of them, this is what he had to say about one of the men who stirred LeBron to greatness, “M.J. was the lightning in a bottle for me, because I wanted to be like him.”

In a world full of negativity and anger vying for our attention, it’s such a great reminder that there is every bit as much positivity, beauty and absolutely stunning human achievements, happening all of the time, all around the world. I like to think that these positive feats way outweigh the negative, in their magnanimity alone. If we make the point of seeking the positive out, we are left breathless in the wake of the possibilities available to all of us, to choose to live in our passions and in our awe of the prospects of achievement waiting to happen, and to stir all of us, to our greatest potentials.

“Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.” – Helen Keller

“In order to carry a positive action we must develop here a positive vision.” – Dalai Lama

The Good That Comes Out

I am going to preface this blog post by saying that I am not a person who is very interested in, nor strongly involved in, politics. I am not about to write a political post. I think that the internet already has too many political websites inciting all sorts of anger and angst, and I am not about to add to the fray. Frankly, I am not informed or knowledgeable enough to really know what I am talking about when it comes to most political subjects. That being said, I had an “a-ha moment” yesterday, relating to the government shutdown.

My friend has a daughter who goes to college in Washington D. C. My friend texted our group chat that while her daughter has seen a lot of disruption in the area of our capital, she also had seen a lot of volunteering and fundraising to help the furloughed workers out. Another friend chimed in that a neighbor had started a fundraiser for local Coast Guard families. I looked up what things were being done for these workers and I read about donations to food pantries rising, greatly. I read about grocery stores and food companies creating “free grocery stores” for our government workers. I read about easy, inexpensive loan funds being set up by insurance companies and banks to help our fellow citizens to get over this hump. I read about a donation website being created, to help clean up our national parks. My family and I went to Yosemite this past summer and we had an amazing trip there. I decided to donate to this national park fund this morning.

People are mostly good. Our American citizens are mostly kind, generous, compassionate people who care deeply about other people, our beautiful country, and the future for our children and grandchildren, for generations to come. No matter where any of us stand on our political views, most of us are inherently good people. I had to confess to my husband last night that I had recently lost my wallet in our local grocery store. I had just gone to the bank and it had hundreds of dollars in it. (I didn’t want to tell him because I have a tendency to lose things . . . . a lot.) Anyway, as you can guess, some kind, wonderful, honest person turned my wallet in and that integrity-filled person, took not one penny out of it. Honestly, this didn’t surprise me. I’m entirely grateful. I have been praying for amazing blessings to shower this person, every day this week, but I am not amazed. My experience is that people, no matter their color, age, sex, political party, sexual orientation, economic status, etc. etc. are mostly Good!! I told my husband about it last night because I knew that I needed to write about this today.

When my friends told us about the kind, generous donations and volunteering that was happening to support our furloughed friends and neighbors, I thought to myself, “Wow, what a wonderful way to deal with the frustrations many of us our feeling about our political system these days!” My guess is that every spectrum of person has donated to these various funds or volunteered to help in some way – the people who can’t stand our president, the people who can’t stand our Congress, the people who can’t stand the whole lot of them, the people who see this standstill as a “necessary evil” to get our lawmakers to come together, the people who feel frustrated and helpless and lost when it comes to the state of our affairs, the people who feel confident about the state of our country and our leaders, etc. etc. Bottom line, is that all of these people are doing Good. Together. It’s what most of us do. We are Americans. We are Good. We are Doers. We look out for each other. I feel a lot of pride right now.

I think helping each other through these tumultuous times is so much more effective and empowering, than writing divisive, dismissive, condescending viewpoints on social media that will only be argued vehemently, by those who feel completely opposite in their views. When people feel that strongly about something, their views are very unlikely to be moved or changed. However, being an example of “What can I do to help make this situation better for those innocents who are currently having to ‘take one for the team’?” is a reminder of what our country is really made of – people who care, people who come together in crisis, people who are capable of seeing the bigger picture, people who are resilient and hopeful and strong. And nothing is going to change that because that is our foundation. That is who Americans are and that is why our country is the tremendous beacon of light, for so many people. And I am proud to call myself an American.

Explore. Dream. Discover.

I’m heading home now from my magical weekend.  The place that I visited was on my bucket list for deeply personal and spiritual reasons.  It exceeded my expectations in all regards and has brought a sense of wholeness to that part of my being that has always yearned to experience this spot, from my family history.  

I used to hate the term “bucket list” but now I am inspired by it.  As I have gotten older and wiser, everything in my life has become more meaningful and pertinent.  Everything.  The maturity and ripeness that comes with middle age, brings everything to a more full-color appreciation and for that, I am truly grateful. 

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than the ones you did do.  So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor.  Catch the trade winds in your sails.  Explore.  Dream.  Discover.” – Mark Twain

Green-Eyed Monster

I once read that if you feel envious of something that someone else has, instead of wallowing in those feelings, you should use the envy as a springboard to either change up things in your own life or to change your thoughts.  Napoleon said that “Envy is a declaration of inferiority,” but I don’t believe that.  I think all of our feelings are part of our natural navigation system, so when our feelings are negative ones, we have to pay attention to what thoughts and circumstances are creating that negativity.  That, in turn, empowers us to make changes.

Many years ago, a friend in my neighborhood who was a few years ahead of me on the parenting chain wheeled happily down our road in her brand new convertible, with the top down and her hair flying.  I was still stuck in the minivan/SUV/station wagon stage of parenting and taxiing my four kids around town in that mode of travel, and admittedly, my envy meter went way up.  I felt sorry for myself for about a week, every time I hauled my brood around in our giant, french-fry garden, multiple mileage miracle, ton-sized Ford SUV.  Ironically, I now look back at that car with such fondness remembering the very many family road trips it reliably got us to and then safely back home, all in one piece.  However, my current ride is a convertible and I adore it!  I decided to turn my envy into future inspiration and it has worked out great in the long run.

Friends of ours are continually busy doing things.  They take trips and adventures and outings as often as the rest of us drink coffee.  Their three kids are younger than ours and I started to feel inferior, lazy and martyr-like compared to them.  I started to feel that ugly little ripple we call envy.  Now reality is that I like down time.  I like alone time and a lot of it.  I like to be spontaneous, calm and peaceful.  So, as exciting as planned outings and trips can be, a little bit of them goes a long way for me.  However, in noticing my ugly feelings, I realized that perhaps our family life had gotten a tad too predictable and banal and so we added a few more weekend outings and we made a better point of planning more interesting family vacations.  I don’t fit into my friends’ frenetic lifestyle but I am grateful for the inspiration it gave to me to spice mine up a little bit and to make changes that were inspiring to me.

Theodore Roosevelt said that “comparison is the the thief of joy.”  I have repeated that quote often to my children when reminding them to be only the best of their own abilities and circumstances.  However, I only believe that Theodore Roosevelt’s statement is true in the long run.  In the short run, if I feel a little prick of the green monster, I ask myself where is that prick coming from and what do I need to do, as an empowered woman, to make that prick go away?  In that sense, a very ugly negative emotion can be turned around to be a beautiful flash of inspiration or a change of focus to strong thoughts of gratitude for all of the amazing good in my own life.  As we all know and have experienced, the grass is greenest where you water it.