photo credit: mick y

“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remem­ber, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the pas­sion to reach for the stars to change the world.” ~ Har­riet Tubman

So, I started think­ing the other day, after read­ing by Mon­ica, from Healthy Green Moms, about what kind of dreams I have for mak­ing our world a bet­ter place.  She wrote an arti­cle at 5 Min­utes for Going Green about Liv­ing Your Green Dream.

I have a dream about a world where many of our dif­fer­ent modes of trans­porta­tion can coex­ist bet­ter together.  Where there are easy ways to cross busy high­ways.  Where bikes have space to drive.  Where peo­ple are excited about alter­na­tive modes of trans­porta­tion.  Where mass trans­porta­tion is read­ily avail­able, and peo­ple want to use it.

We all have dreams.  Are any of yours about mak­ing our world a bet­ter place?  Please share them here.  And think about ways we can make our dreams become a real­ity.  A dream put into action is a pow­er­ful thing!

photo credit: atom­ic­ity

“We may run, walk, stum­ble, drive, or fly, but let us never lose sight of the rea­son for the jour­ney, or miss a chance to see a rain­bow on the way.” ~ Glo­ria Gaither

On my way to and from work, I travel through a small vil­lage near us.  Just last week, I noticed, for the first time, that there is an his­tor­i­cal marker just as you come into town.  I just noticed this, after liv­ing here and dri­ving by this exact spot for the last ten years.

Ten years, and I never once noticed this.  Sure, I saw the build­ings.  And I noticed the stream.  But I never noticed the signs indi­cat­ing that this was an area of his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance.  Ten years.  Dri­ven by on a reg­u­lar basis.  Why had I never noticed it?

We get caught up in what we’re doing, and don’t notice that which is around us.  Some­times this is a land­mark along the way to work.  But other times, it’s things like the rela­tion­ships we have in our lives.  Things maybe we’ve been tak­ing for granted.  Maybe it’s a shel­ter you walk by and never think about what goes on in there.  Maybe it’s a neigh­bor you’ve never really talked to, and just don’t think about in your daily busy-ness of life.

In the jour­ney of life we’re on, let’s not lose sight of all the rain­bows out there.  Some are out for us to see all the time, if we’ll just open our eyes, our minds, and our hearts to see them.

So, my chal­lenge to you:  Make it a point this week to notice some­thing that’s always been there.  Find some­thing that you’ve been miss­ing.  It’s out there, you just have to look for it.  Maybe this means look­ing at things dif­fer­ently.  Maybe it means slow­ing down and really look­ing around.  Maybe it means ven­tur­ing out of your com­fort zone.  What­ever it means for you, do it.  Find some­thing new and be refreshed at dis­cov­er­ing a rain­bow that’s always been there.

“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole stair­case, just take the first step.” ~ Mar­tin Luther King, Jr.

Sky­div­ing — A Story of That First Step In Faith

A dar­ing adven­ture, this was.  Let me tell you the story.  My wife would be cel­e­brat­ing her birth­day.  What to get her?  A sky­div­ing les­son!  Was this some­thing I wanted to do, she asked after receiv­ing her gift (in the form of a cer­tifi­cate to be sched­uled at a later date)?  Well, I wasn’t sure.  It involved some­thing I’d never done before, it involved heights (scary!), and it seemed so black or white — your para­chute opens or it doesn’t (you can imag­ine the pic­ture in my head…).

Her adven­tur­ous side con­vinced me to do it.  And what a great expe­ri­ence!  We would be jump­ing tan­dem — an expe­ri­enced jumper would be attached to us and con­trol the para­chute.  Train­ing was min­i­mal — we were shown the proper way to step out of a mov­ing plane.  Step out of a mov­ing air­plane — in the air — were we nuts!  And then it was time to go up.  Going up, it started to sink in.  What was I get­ting myself into?  How could I turn around and skip this?  It was an old plane, and even the pilot had a para­chute — what did this mean?  There were lots of ques­tions going through my head.  And a pit in the bot­tom of my stomach.

And then we reached the alti­tude we needed to be at for our jump.  Can you recall moments in your life that stand out for some rea­son?  Maybe a scary moment, or an excit­ing moment.  Well, the time had come.  The door to the plane was opened.  And I was told to start mov­ing toward the open door.  I was then clipped in with our sky­div­ing instruc­tor.  And there I was, 10,000 feet in the air, look­ing out the open door of a mov­ing air­plane — and hang­ing on for dear life!  This  became a moment I’ll never for­get.  The fear of tak­ing that next step.  Of hav­ing faith in tak­ing that next step.  The one that would take me from the com­fort and cer­tainty of the air­plane, out into the day sky, and grav­ity, and what­ever else might hap­pen from this high dis­tance.  Thoughts rushed through my head.  The pit in the bot­tom of my stom­ach grew larger.  The instruc­tor with me told me it was time to step out onto the wing.  Fear!  Fear of not know­ing what would come next.  Fear of some­thing new.  The biggest step of my life (at least, at that moment, it seemed that way).  It was time.  And then, I stepped out.  And just like that, we were free-falling toward earth.  And what an exhil­a­rat­ing feel­ing it was!  The rush through the sky, the loud­ness of push­ing through the air!  The sheer speeds we reached!  The free­dom of the open sky — incred­i­ble!  And then we opened up the para­chute.  Instantly we went from a loud rush through the sky to quiet and calm.  And I looked around.  And noticed the world beneath me.  From a free-fall to con­trolled move­ment.  Fam­ily on the ground, wav­ing to me.  Peace.  A feel­ing of joy in the world.  And we glided in for a per­fect landing.

I had taken that leap — scary as it was.  And the expe­ri­ence was like noth­ing I’d expe­ri­enced before.  And it was lib­er­at­ing.  And I felt like I could do any­thing I wanted to do at that moment.

Tak­ing the Leap

Sky­div­ing.  This became much more than just the rush of jump­ing out of an air­plane.  This became a moment that I have looked back on many times.  Sky­div­ing became a les­son I could use at times when fear would try to over­take my thoughts.  Some­times, we don’t kow what’s going to hap­pen when we take that next step in our lives.  Will we crash?  Be ridiculed?  Fail mis­er­ably?  Suc­ceed and not know how to han­dle it?  Some­times we just don’t know.  No mat­ter how much prepa­ra­tion we have put in.

You’ve stud­ied your options, you’ve pre­pared, you’ve crossed your t’s and dot­ted your i’s.  But the next step takes you into the unknown.  If you feel con­fi­dent in where you’re going, but just not what the next step will be like — I encour­age you to take that leap.  You may not see where that step is going to take you, or what’s up around the next cor­ner.  But, if this is some­thing you really want, take the chance.  You may fail.  But have you not also failed if you want some­thing and don’t take the chance to get it.  And you may suc­ceed, suc­cess beyond your wildest dreams.  But you will never know, if you don’t take some of those steps, if you don’t leap with faith in yourself.

It can be a real test of your faith.  Do you believe in your­self and what your going after?  Jump!  Take a chance!  Fail mis­er­ably, if that’s the case.  And then, get back up and do it again.  In the end, you will be much more ful­filled in your life, know­ing that you lived it on your terms.  That you tried boldly the things which set your heart on fire.  And that, that is suc­cess in life.

photo credit: Sve­den

“I learned this, at least, by my exper­i­ment; that if one advances con­fi­dently in the direc­tion of his dreams, and endeav­ors to live the life which he has imag­ined, he will meet with a suc­cess unex­pected in com­mon hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invis­i­ble bound­ary; new, uni­ver­sal, and more lib­eral laws will begin to estab­lish them­selves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and inter­preted in his favor in a more lib­eral sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In pro­por­tion as he sim­pli­fies his life, the laws of the uni­verse will appear less com­plex, and soli­tude will not be soli­tude, nor poverty poverty, nor weak­ness weak­ness.  If you have built cas­tles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foun­da­tions under them. ” ~ Henry David Thoreau

Over the week­end, I spent a lit­tle time main­tain­ing my bike.  I filled the tires with air, check the chain, checked the brakes, and made sure all the bolts were tight.  Yes­ter­day, I rode it for the first time after my minor main­te­nance job to it.  What hap­pened?  It was the eas­i­est and fastest ride I’ve had all sum­mer!  This wasn’t because the wind was in my favor.  This wasn’t because I was rid­ing a course that was more down­hill than usual.  This wasn’t because I was more phys­i­cally pre­pared to ride.  No, this was sim­ply because I had taken time to main­tain the bike.

Our cars should have oil changes every 3,000 miles.  Our fur­nace should have a yearly checkup.  Our kids should have yearly phys­i­cals at the doctor.

So, we main­tain our cars, our houses, our kids.  But how do we main­tain ourselves?

Phys­i­cal Maintenance

Exer­cise: We should exer­cise on a reg­u­lar basis.  This includes both car­dio vas­cu­lar type activ­i­ties (run­ning, bik­ing, inter­val train­ing, walk­ing, jump rope, etc.) and strength train­ing (weight train­ing, resis­tance exer­cises, etc.).  Not going into much detail here, we should have a mix of the two for the most effi­cient fat loss and mus­cle build­ing activity.

Nutri­tion: Proper nutri­tion is a very impor­tant part of our phys­i­cal main­te­nance.  We should be get­ting a good mix of car­bo­hy­drates, pro­teins, and healthy fats.  Included in this should be lots of fruits and veg­eta­bles.  And we should also look at how much we are eat­ing.  Keep por­tion sizes small.  Know what you are eat­ing.  Don’t over­stuff your­self.  On the other hand, don’t be too restric­tive in the num­ber of calo­ries you are eat­ing as well.  Just like overeat­ing, under eat­ing is a down­ward spi­ral you want to avoid as well.

Men­tal Maintenance

Just as impor­tant as our phys­i­cal main­te­nance is our men­tal main­te­nance.  How do we remain sharp, focused, and cre­ate the life we desire?

This one is not as easy to define.  The key is that we need to do some­thing.  What that some­thing is for you will really depend upon what works for you.

First off, it is impor­tant to do some reg­u­lar, daily or weekly men­tal main­te­nance.  This could include some sort of med­i­ta­tion or quiet time each day to col­lect your thoughts and plan your day.  Or tak­ing time to read a book.  Or going out for an evening run (phys­i­cally this is good, but it can also be a men­tal main­te­nance activ­ity as well) — and clear­ing your mind after a long day.  Maybe it’s play­ing a game with fam­ily mem­bers.  Or what­ever it is that gives you some time to clear your mind and re-focus.  Think of these as reg­u­lar activ­i­ties that are done fairly often (up to sev­eral times a week).

On top of that, it is also impor­tant to do some more thor­ough men­tal main­te­nance.  This would be less often — think about an annual checkup with your doc­tor.  This can come in many forms, the key is to do some­thing.  And write it down.  What you write down you are more likely to accom­plish.  This could be called your goals list, your New Year’s res­o­lu­tions, your “Things To Do Before You Die” list.  Note that I’m not per­son­ally a big fan of New Year’s res­o­lu­tions since they usu­ally tend to be quickly thought out and also quickly for­got­ten.  But if it works for you, then that’s what you should do.  What you want is some­thing that helps you define who you are and who you want to be.  This helps to give your life direc­tion.  Oth­er­wise, we become con­trolled by forces out­side of our con­trol, instead of choos­ing the direc­tions we want to go.

This is not to say that any of this is easy to do, or even more so, easy to accom­plish.  All of this takes time and real intro­spec­tion into who you are.  And we have to decide, is it worth the effort to  under­stand our­selves bet­ter.  I hope the answer is yes.  Yes, that we want to lead our lives the way we desire.  Yes, that we want to choose the paths we go down.  Yes, that we want to be suc­cess­ful in our terms.  Yes, that we want to cre­ate a great life!

Con­clu­sion

We main­tain “things” we have in our life so they’ll con­tinue to per­form opti­mally.  What’s also impor­tant, in fact, more impor­tant, is that we main­tain our­selves — both phys­i­cally and men­tally.  Through a com­bi­na­tion of proper phys­i­cal and men­tal main­te­nance, we can lead the lives of abun­dance and joy we desire.