Fire By Sea

It’s not about me. It’s about other people and my service to them. This is deeply fundamental.

I experienced this yesterday as had to take care of my 3 healthy children as my wife and eldest child (often the caretaker) were ill with a nasty strain of the flu. Instead of going surfing like I normally do at the beach, I got to sit on the beach with the 2 younger ones while the eldest went surfing.

This is what my wife normally does, and so I got a good dose of empathy for her. This was also preceded by a dose of sickness empathy, as I got the same flu five days earlier.

This taste of servitude is significant, and I admit I took it on a bit begrudgingly. But my ability to see the lesson here—and learn accordingly from it—is only hampered by my intent and attitude to change. Nothing else stands in the way, and so the opportunity to change is mine to lose.

As I sit here and consider what it means to change—and I mean real change—I think about it coming from within first. Not just an idea or a well-intended feeling, but a resolution and adjustment to the self. A firmware upgrade to the soul, the principals, the philosophy within.

And so I set down one of my goals of 2010 (this is different from The 3 Words) as: me<others. This means:

• To consider the welfare and well-being of other people before myself.
• To not indulge in my work selfishly and disguise it as either false noble or obligatory activity (example: I’m working to save humanity but really all I’m doing is indulging in my hobby).
• To make sacrifices that have meaningful results for others.

Gotta go now and practice some preaching!

I look back at my life and think of times and activities that I’ve done that could one day lead to living a life of greatness.

I haven’t exactly followed much of a traditional path: No special private or Ivy League schools, no historical breakthroughs or recognitions. Just a man struggling to raise a family in the world.

So what is it?

I think I can agree that greatness, or a calling to greatness, first comes from within. A potency of character as I previously described. But what about the external factors, the actions leading up to that tipping point? How do I connect the internal disposition to the external world, to people?

Sometimes I fear that a singular, jolting event would transform my ordinary life into something more than ordinary. But that’s not the way I want it to happen. I want to lock into the target, put my head down and work hard as hell to crack the code.

That’s the purpose of this renewed 2010 focus. It’s not easy, though. I’m already feeling the blandness of days, where one runs into the other without fluctuation or variance. Where going through the motions is best effort, and emotional connectivity comes from “quality programming.”

And so the quest begins. The quest—the work and the action and faith and persistence—to turn the predicable and mundane into the beautiful, meaningful and yes, Great. Living with greatness everyday. That is my quest.

This is more than staying excited about something cool and inspirational long after it’s left town. It’s about getting to the essence, the core of my life, answering what feels to be a fated, destined call to greatness.

Most vacations I know about don’t last 3 weeks. They’re usually 10 days or 2 weeks. Somehow we’re blessed with the gift of a house to sit and a car to drive and 3 weeks to do it. Actually, make that 24 days.

The first week is all about initial excitement, getting to know the nooks and crannies of where you’re staying, the view, the way the sun comes in at certain times of the day. Eating out. Utter abandon and bliss, more or less.

For the people who take one week only vacations, the fun is cut short. You don’t get to settle into your area and your sense of place has yet to develop. It’s an in and out.

Week two is the beginning of settling in. You start getting used to waking up in a foreign bed, backing out of the same driveway and perhaps recognizing the barista down the street. Whether or not you miss home, you can actually feel yourself adjusting to what was once novelty.

By the end of two weeks, you feel like you’ve taken a reasonable vacation, and it’s safe to say you’re satisfied enough to go home. Two weeks is the standard.

We’re in our third week, and I no longer feel like I’m on vacation. I feel like I’m a temporary resident who has settled in. Everything is familiar, but that’s not what I’m getting at. In fact, everything I’ve written is just rambling filler for what I’m trying to say:

This third week has been unexpectedly valuable. It has help solidify my goals by forcing me to meditate on why we like it here and what I can do to get us out of the mess we’re in.

It’s kind of like a curing stage, and really has nothing to do with vacation. It has to do with change and adjusting the mindset to realize that change. I couldn’t have done this last week because I was still bedazzled by the novelty.

This week the novelty is gone so I’m lucid. The obvious challenge, as mentioned before, is to keep that focus going through what is sure to be the roughest of times ahead.

Those are my three words for 2010 (previously it was greatness, action and breakthrough).

Let’s define and apply them in brief:

Greatness

Greatness is living above and beyond the normal and ordinary expectations of life. It’s a potency of character that sets a president for others to aspire to, and encompasses the virtues of discipline, vision, persistence and humility.

By constantly aspiring for greatness in the coming year—and I do mean daily meditation and pursuit—I should be able to attract equal forces of greatness that could help propel me out of my current constrained situation.

The greatness must supersede the triviality of my daily grind. I have to surround myself with great things and people and books and ideas—nothing petty, wasteful, indulgent or ideological. Or harmful to good people.

Action

Action is the other half of good ideas. Plans and ideas must be acted upon in order for them to work, just as bad plans, distractions and time wasters need to be treated with inaction.

Misguided inaction has been the bane of my existence for so many years—perhaps my entire life, and is the reason why I’m nowhere near where I want to or should be.

Action will set me apart from the well-funded overthinkers I rely on for sustenance. I shall not be a poor nor rich philosopher, but a great man producing great things.

The toil, the gritty work, the pushing past fear, the doing—that is the action I must adhere to this year if I want out of the rabbit hole and back on my own two feet, back into the light.

Independence

Independence is the ultimate goal of 2010. It’s the freedom, self-reliance and the shedding of unhealthy dependence on others. It is as esoteric as it is material, from a freedom of realizing the soul’s grand purpose to the more pressing needs of a flourishing income.

Clearly, without naming names, I seek independence from one particular. Neither good nor bad, it stifles my independence and the independence of my family.

After all, why should anyone have to sell themselves to someone else’s cause just because they need the money? Aren’t there ways around this? Is there not a simple and powerful solution to be had?

Epilogue

The strategy is to lay a robust insular foundation in these coming weeks and months, something that needs to be commanded and commanding and embracing of this 3-word 2010 doctrine. There is no other way.

By doing that, by building that rock-solid foundation for the year, I will be able to set the course to freedom.

As time goes on, it’s much harder to maintain that level of passion and feeling that comes with encountering greatness. I try to keep the fire burning but I feel it’s not in me. So then what?

The only solution I can think of is to put my head down and work on my 2010 goals, or as Chris Brogan says, my 3 words for the year. So far I’ve come up with Action, Greatness and Breakthrough. Leave a little room for small, unexpected miracles, which always help.

So that’s it…? Just keep working?

Something I found comforting yesterday was reading about the Obama’s last evening in Hawaii:

At the zoo, reporters asked the Obamas if they were ready to return to Washington. They all responded, “No!”

Michelle Obama then joked, “Let’s stay. We’ll all stay. Are we all in? I’m trying to mount a coup.”

Which makes me wonder: maybe, deep inside, they just want to live the life I already have! Go figure. Of course I feel so dissatisfied with my simple life and would love to go out and save the world like him.

But then again, I have something so valuable that many do not. I have the freedom, time and availability to be a present father. I’m close by and I am close to my family.

So it’s not the pomp and circumstance I’m interested in, but the freedom to preserve and protect freedom for others. TO create environments where love, sustenance and life can grow and thrive.

Freedom means everything to me. Obama says in The Audacity of Hope the underlying philosophy behind his politics is empathy. The trick is to tie the two together: How to freedom and empathy relate in a progressive Democracy?

[Here’s the 2nd post of the day…]

I remember once as a kid we took a trip to California. I had a wonderful time and when I boarded the plane back home to Alaska, I remember staring out the window and crying because I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want that feeling to end.

There’s nothing uncommon about loving a vacation while not being so fond of the daily grind. But what about when you get a feeling that moves you so deeply, so truly, that you can’t let it go? You refuse to go back and settle for your normal life?

Usually we do settle. We go back and we plug ourselves back into the same old distractions and unproductive habits. We do it because it’s easy and comfortable and masks the painful truth that we’re not really happy, or living our lives to the utmost potential.

We also settle because we have to. We go home because that’s where we live, where we’ve investing our lives’ energy and planted our roots. Our kids have their school and friends. We know our neighbors. We have our jobs.

There is nothing wrong with this, of course. Most people will ask why I question my blessings. But I don’t see it that way. I just see a more meaningful purpose for me other than the struggle and stagnation I live.

Money is Necessary

Ugh, money. It’s tough for me to go out and make it, but once I figure that out, watch out.

Without money people like me are powerless. I’m not totally educated and not well connected and I live in relative isolation in a small town on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Right now nobody respects or listens to me. With money—and not necessarily a fortune—I can do the things I see fit, take care of my family and earn myself a voice from which people might listen to me.

Until then, I remain mostly silent, working quietly behind the scenes on my ideas and their hopeful realization.

I really tried to write yesterday—per my new agreement—but the diarrhea, vomiting in a public trash can and the over-100 degree fever just wouldn’t allow me. So I’m not counting it against me, plus I’ll make up for it by writing twice today.

So today begins the gradual return to reality — the daily calls to Space Age, the slowed-down life soon back in Waimea, Obama back in Washington (some of us like me, with huge aspirations but scant accomplishments, harbor fantasies of meeting and mingling with someone so great and important).

The only way to work my way out of this mess I’m in is to temper my idealism with realism, my thoughts with goal-oriented action. That’s the only way out of this.

And once I/we are out of this — then what? Back here to Oahu? Is that really the answer? Another familiar place that’s comfortable and with more to do? There’s got to be more than that out there.

In other words, what is my call to greatness? Or am I just crazy? Sometimes I think I’m crazy, like other people I know.

When I look back at the things I’ve done to get me where I am, I don’t see much intelligence or prudent decisions—just doing what I had to do survive. And I’m sick of living like that.

Yeah, that’s me. Clearly frustrated.

I have this feeling within, this inability to accept settling for a life of comfort and predictability and—shall I say—normalcy?

When I look around and see perfectly content people, I think to myself how I could never be that way. I have a calling that transcends a good, simple life.

The problem is wondering how I get from where I am to realizing that vision. Right now I’m in a trap — stuck in a small town working for someone who is crazy and pays well. The ultimate double-edged sword.

How does someone with a minimal education and experience in mainstream circles accomplish something great and grand? If you look at Obama’s life you get this strong sense of fate and destiny and grand purpose. He went to all the right schools, got the right focus, waited to have a family at the right time.

You look at me and it’s all backwards…but how much does that really matter? But it’s not I’m trying to be the President, right?

Another fear I have is the fear of feeling so depressed and beat down that I run out of feeling. Run out of causes to believe in, out of ideas to flourish and bring to life. Just another nobody.

I’m very interested in the power of intent and how strong it can be in setting the direction and scene of one’s life. Let’s say I intend, purely, to live a life of greatness and meaning, but I look around me and my life is anything but that. Will my intent get me through to the other side?

What do I need to do? What’s the secret?

It’s been an enlightening past 2 weeks as I’m here in Honolulu on a working vacation with my family. My wife and I have felt a real awakening of spirit, of purpose; not from being in a big city with lots to do, but rather by the potential we have to create greatness in the world.

In other words, life beyond settling down in our small town: working backwards as we like to say. First kids, then marriage, then college, then buying a house and then going out and saving the world.

I can’t deny that President Obama being here is having a profound effect on me. Under incredible synchronicities, we’ve managed to see his motorcade twice. Just being here while he’s here pervades the place with a sense on greatness and intimacy due to the fact that we too are deeply rooted in Hawaii.

Here’s the outlook for 2010: much better, with the goal to financial freedom. Not financial freedom for the sake of buying things, as I once may have thought, but to have the freedom to live the life I’m drawn to. To do great things without having to answer causes I don’t support or believe in.

For some reason, I’m drawn to something out there. I don’t know what it is but it’s big and important. It’s not about getting rich or being famous, either. It’s about service and sacrifice and happiness for others.

Other 2010 notes: simplicity, cutting out all that is unnecessary to the goal.

I don’t know, I’m just shooting for writing something every day. It’s important to write everyday…it really is the ticket to freedom.