Prologue: One Year

In October of 2010 I started this blog with one premise "I gave my life to be the person I am today, was it worth it?" (Richard Bach)  “Today my answer is “yes.”   I had left an unhappy and unfulfilling situation and found the root of myself and was beginning a journey.  I feel like I’m just scratching the surface. I feel like it should always feel that way.

I want people to come to, fight for, struggle through, overcome and take ownership of what it takes to get to "yes."  I want to say yes each day, and feel the weight and the worth of what that means, what it takes.   It’s about overcoming what’s outside yourself as much as it is about self discovery and the battles that rage within.  It’s about making peace with failure and redefining it's value.  It’s believing that better is possible but it will take work and it will take a commitment.  It’s knowing that growth happens a step at a time, a breath, a heartbeat at a time, but sometimes I’ll get to close my eyes and jump.  It’s existing outside prescribed limitations.  It’s having faith.

I believe in living in the realm of what’s possible. Outside the bounds of what is considered realistic.  The world is so beautiful, dangerous and miraculous but people are so scared to go find out what that feels like.  They don't want to live they want to “exist” and that is not enough for me.  That shouldn’t be enough for anyone. 

I am going to write a book.  Starting today, now.  People have told me for years to do it and I didn’t know what my story was.  I didn’t know it was building that whole time and bringing me to this moment.  My book will be about a year of living an inspired life where I will document the experiences with words, images, videos.  A year of seeing people achieve, pushing myself to achieve, finding and realizing - monumental accomplishments and the relationships and people in the process.  It’s about my journey, but it’s not.  It’s all the people and stories that serve as the catalyst for the inspiration.  It’s about my family who believes even when they don’t understand, my friends who are unwavering even when I’ve been lost.  This is my life of living.  It’s about accomplishing, failing, figuring it out, and feeling something every day. 

It means something different for everyone and I am going to explore it.  All of it.  It’s “the thing” that sets off the spark.  The part of you that is waiting to be awakened.  So, it’s time to wake up.

Ayn Rand is one of my favorite authors for a lot of reasons, but my life mission statement I shared on January 1st was, and still is: “Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it’s yours.” – Ayn Rand

So today I begin to document my year. 

It's a year of being inspired.  It's a year of "living."  It’s a year of answering “yes.”