“Whatever your goal is, you will never succeed unless you let go of your fears and fly.” – Richard Branson

As much as I am amazed, intrigued and awed by the power of social media, something about it bothers me.  I feel as though we have become a society of spectators, watching instead of doing.  The explosion and popularity of reality shows is a social phenomenon which has reached epidemic proportions that proves the fact that many, not all, but many are fascinated with watching the lives of others.  I have often fallen victim to it, watching others vacationing and exploring exotic places and wondering why I’m not doing the same.  Some people have termed this phenomenon “Fakebook”: hiding behind the smiles, glamorous pictures of homes, cars and vacations everyone has their world of worries, concerns and problems.

It’s okay, I get it. It’s not entirely our own fault. We all need to shut down sometimes, turn the brain off, disengage and scroll through our feeds.  The humor of watching some train wreck mob or Orange County wife whine over some trivial matter is entertaining.  My point is let’s not let it consume our lives.  The biggest tragedy in America is not the waste of natural resources, but the waste of human resources.  The dumbing down of America is not something to be taken lightly and we need to start taking matters into our own hands.  As Jim Rohn points out human beings are the only living species that don’t grow to their full potential.  An oak tree grows as high as it possibly can, it doesn’t decide that okay 5 feet is good enough.  I want you to ask yourself, how often do we stop at trying to be less than we can be?  A tree can only be a tree, a bird can only be a bird, which when it migrates, has to fly south.  A human being, however, can be anything he or she wants to be and can go wherever they want but more often than not we take the safe route.

When we are children all we do is dream.  We tell everyone and anyone that will listen that we will travel the world, become Major League Baseball players, doctors, presidents, become billionaires but something happens along the way.  As Zig Ziglar colorfully puts it, we stumble, we bang our heads, we stub our toes on the problems of life.  We let people tell us we can’t and what’s worse, we believe them.  We aren’t smart enough, we aren’t big enough, we create all kinds of excuses to protect our fragile egos.  Sometimes it’s the very people that love us the most that tell us these things so as not to see us get hurt.  We allow doubt to creep into our minds, we let setbacks become walls and ceilings instead of springboards and lessons to propel us onward to becoming better tomorrow than we were yesterday.  I’m here not to tell you, because you already know, but to remind you that you have the power to change it all if you believe, if you stop playing small and live a larger life.

When the human body is at rest and thinking it is believed that it is only using about 10% of its brain.  The amazing thing is the power that it does have when it is firing on all cylinders.  The brain represents 3% of the body’s weight yet it uses 20% of the body’s energy.  Are we going to mess up?  Are we going to make some decisions that don’t work out?  Yes, but how will you ever know what great potential exists within you if you never even get up to bat?  Everything you could ever possibly dream to have, to be, exists on the other side of your fears.

Embrace that power.  Why be everything you can be?  Why not? Not only why not, but why not you and why not now? Stop saying you are going to do something and do it!  You don’t like your job? Find a new one.  You don’t like where you live or you can’t afford it?  Move.  Your kids don’t talk to you?  Talk to them, build that relationship.  You’re pissed off at your parents for something that happened when you were a kid?  Forgive them and move on.  Are you in a toxic relationship that you have tried every conceivable way of mending?  Get out of it.

I have witnessed far too many friends and family battle the evils of cancer and the one commodity they all wish they had more of, is that of time.  They truly live each and every day as if it were their last and say today I’m going to make a difference.  Today I am going to rise up and make someone feel special, I am going to listen to the birds sing, laugh and cry as hard as I can because that is what it feels like to be alive.

I am sick and tired of wishing days away, praying that if I can just get through one more day, it’s one more day closer to the weekend and time I can spend with my wife and daughters.  I’ve made a promise to myself today, that I am not going to go on living that way and I challenge you to do the same.  It’s not easy and we will fall into ruts and get frustrated, and depressed.  Yes,  even though I write this blog it happens to me, yet I continue to climb those mountains of fear and doubt because there is no turning back or giving up.  You will see me waving from the top or dead on the side from trying.  No race is ever run without that first step, no matter how far or short.  It takes one step and then another and then another to get to the finish but we can’t finish something we never really started.

Let’s live out ALL of our dreams.  Let’s take massive action and live the life we want to live and stop settling and accepting our lots in life.  If I never hear the words it is what it is, it will be too soon. You were destined for better, you were put on this earth to do great things.  Horace Mann once said, ” We should be ashamed to die until we have made some major contribution to  mankind. ” The time is now everyone to do what you love, be who you and what you want to be and figure it out.  Our time spent on this earth is but a parentheses on the continuum of time, a blip on the radar of history. So don’t talk, act.  Don’t say, show.  Don’t promise, prove.

Peace-

MK