The face of inspiration

Life is made up of a series of magic moments.  These are moments that move, touch, and inspire you in a way that your life will never be the same again.  These moments may come from a song, an experience, everyday interactions with people, a movie, or many other seemingly insignificant things.  Every moment has the potential to be magical if we open our mind and heart and pay attention.  I just had one of these moments this morning when I went online and came across the beautiful and moving story of Zach Sobiech.  This is a story of a boy who was diagnosed with terminal cancer and was only given months to live.  He decided he was going to leave his mark on the world and wrote a touching song called “Clouds.”  The boy was so inspiring they decided to do a documentary on him.  I watched the documentary this morning and was moved in a way that I will never be the same again.  Here is what I learned:

1 “You don’t have to find out you’re dying to start living.”

           

Many of us live our lives putting off to tomorrow what we would love to do today.  We live by the “Some day…” motto.  Some day I will travel to the places I dream of.  Some day I will start to exercise.  Some day I will change my career to something I would love to do.  Some day, some day, some day.  The devastation of “some day” is that it may never come.  We never know what tomorrow will bring.  We need to live today in 2 ways: as if tomorrow will never come and in a way we want to be remembered by our family, friends, and society forever.

2 Decide to make people happy.

            

There is no greater life than dedicating and committing your life to something greater than yourself.  I have found there is no greater joy than dedicating myself to a life of service to humanity.  Everyday I walk into my office and dedicate myself to delivering the highest quality of care to my patients with a level of love and presence unmatched anywhere in the world.  Do I accomplish that?  I am not so sure but I hope my patients feel my level of love and intention to make a difference in their lives.  I also try to do this in every aspect of my life.  Serve the people around you. Make them happy, and it will be impossible for you not to make yourself happy in the process.

3 Tell the people you love that you love them and tell them often.

            

Do you know that feeling you get when someone you love says “I love you?”  You know, the feeling like you are the most amazing and most important person in the world?  And I am not just talking about the “love you” you may hear in passing.  I am talking about the fully committed and present “I Love You” that makes your heart melt.  I thought so.  People feel the same when you do it to them as well.  Love is meant to be shared.  Don’t keep it to yourself.  If you don’t tell them, they may never know.  And by that time, it may be too late. 

Although Zach just passed away a few days ago on May 20, 2013, just shortly after his 18^th birthday, his spirit lives on in the millions of lives he has touched through the way he lived his life.  Our lives are determined by the choices we make everyday.  Choose powerful choices and you will live an extraordinary life.  I know Zach did. 

Love,

Matt

Pursuit of Your Destiny

Picture from Rumi's Facebook page

The only path to lasting fulfillment and true happiness is living our life wide open.  There is an old Buddist saying that goes something like this: Pain is inevitable but to suffer is a choice.  When you live you life wide open, you are living your life from a place of complete vulnerability.  You are living your life congruent with your truest self and out on display for the whole world to see.  For many, this is a scary place to be.  When we live with an emotional and mental armor on, it is easy to make excuses when someone doesn’t like us or respect who we are.  We rationalize it with excuses because they don’t know who we really are.  We put on a display as to what we think looks good and what is socially acceptable for fear of people not appreciating our truest self.  The problem is that this is exactly what blocks us from achieving our greatest destiny.

The challenge here is two fold.  First we have to figure out who we are as individuals.  What are our highest values, beliefs, and behaviors?  What are our loves, fears, and insecurities?  What are we good at, not so good at, and downright terrible at?  Being in touch with ourselves at our core is not just acknowledging our strengths and just being positive.  It is understanding and accepting the good, the bad, and the ugly about ourselves.  It is understanding who we are deepest at our core and surrendering to that.  When we surrender, we accept all that is about our self exactly as it is.  We literally fall in love with our self.  We fall in love with our strengths and our idiosyncrasies.  We fall in love with our physical and emotional self and all that we are.  Only when we fall in love with ourselves in the now, or in the moment, are we able to see where we want to go.  Let me give you an example.  Imagine you are driving down the road on a clear night. The road is beautifully lit by the moon and the stars.  You can see all around you and determine the direction you want to move.  Now imagine a thick fog rolls in and interrupts your present moment.  You can’t even see right in front of you so it will be impossible to determine the direction you want or need to go.  Surrendering in the moment and falling in love with yourself is exactly what is needed to clear the fog.  It creates the clarity in your mind and your heart to allow you to see your path clearly and without judgment. This path can only be achieved by living your life wide open.

The second part is sharing yourself with others.  This comes from integrating this exciting and new love you have for yourself with humanity all around you.  This is accomplished by revealing your “naked” self to the world by living your life from inside out.  What you do and say is determined by who you are on the inside.  This is scary because what if people don’t like you?  What if who you are is not good enough for the people around you?  Even worse, what if the newfound person you find yourself to be does not connect with the people you have always been closest to you in your life?  These things are scary.  These are the barriers all of us on the road to personal discovery and self-mastery have to pass through.  This is where pain is inevitable, yet suffering is optional. 

Life is going to throw its set of challenges at you.  Some of these challenges will be physical.  Others may be spiritual, financial, emotional, or social, but most likely it will be a combination of all of these.  If your life does not accompany some type of pain, you are not living your life wide open.  However, pain does not have to be accompanied by suffering.  The way we transcend suffering is to do two things:  pass no judgments and fully accepting what is occurring in the moment and attaching an empowering meaning to a challenge you are currently facing.  Let me share with you a personal story.  I am incredibly passionate about exercising and movement.  I love to work out and move my body.  A passion of mine has always been weight lifting.  Recently, I have had some old as well as new injuries surface that have forced me to take a break lifting heavy weights.  It would be really easy for me to judge the situation as bad and create a depressing meaning for the pain I have to go through physically and mentally, at not being able to practice my passion for lifting weights.  Or I can release the desire to attach judgment to my situation and instead create an empowering meaning behind what I am going through.  I have chosen the latter.  This has actually been an amazing opportunity for me to practice yoga, gymnastics, flexibility, balance, and body weight movements.  It has allowed me to strengthen myself mentally at overcoming challenging situations, and it has given me more experience at connecting with myself and sharing this meaning with other people.

We are all given the same opportunity everyday: to choose exactly how we would love to live our lives.  Are we going to live our lives from a place of joy, abundance, and empowerment or from a place of lack, scarcity, and self-deprecation?  Connect to your truest self and watch your life unfold.  When we stop making excuses for where we are in life and start taking a stand for the life we would love to live, mountains will move and oceans will part for you.  There is nothing more powerful than people who are connected with themselves and who attach themselves to a mission and purpose greater than themselves. Do not wait until tomorrow to live your life with passion.  Begin now.  It is the only time that exists anyways. 

Love,
Matt