A Decade Gone By....

NOTE: This following post does speak of September 11, 2001. Please do not think I am ignoring the event or downplaying its significance. I just have a few words to say that relates and it may come out all wrong, but attribute that to my lacking writing skills and not my heart. Thank you.

"Time waits for no man" - Unknown

Yesterday was September 11. 10 years ago on the date, terrorists flew 2 planes into the Twin Towers. Thousands of people were hurt or injured, millions of people in mourning and/or loss. Everyone remembers where they were on September 11, 2001 when the planes hit. I was in my high school chemistry class watching Spongebob (don't judge us, Spongebob provided a lot of life lessons) when a fellow teacher ran into change the channel to CNN. What I remember is that the entire class sat in shock. Some cried, some bowed their heads, and some just stared. I sat speechless as I watch real people trapped in real buildings fall apart for all the world to see. We watched the channel the entire time, from 9 a.m. in the morning until late in the afternoon. All day and all week, that was the news story on every channel. And I still can't fathom it. I will never forget September 11.

A decade has gone by so fast. 10 years. Approximately 3,650 days.87,600 hours and counting. The 10th Anniversary of September 11 made me realize something. I am not guaranteed a long life on this Earth, I am not guaranteed a happy life on this Earth and I am not guaranteed that I will know my last day on this Earth. Sometimes I view my life as a novel, a riveting tale with sights and sounds and a flurry of interesting people and places on a never-ending ride through good times. But I am not guaranteed none of those things. My life life shares 2 things in common with a novel: it had a beginning in 1985 and it will have an end once my ink runs dry. I hope to have no regrets once that day comes.

September 11, 2001 is one date that will forever will be in my novel. As I look back over a period of 10 years, I realize I didn't change much. I didn't take advantage of the opportunities presented to me. I didn't take advantage of the options I presented to myself. I stagnated and in some ways slid back. I can't even say I gave it my all. I did just enough to get by. I followed directions, I went where I was supposed to go and did what I supposed to do, never veering off the path. The only thing is, after a decade of follow the leader, I realized I do not want any of this. The bulk of my novel is written by me, and if I continue to sit around follow directions and follow the leader, it will be a boring read. I don't want to try relive my life on my deathbed and imagine the different outcomes for each missed path or opportunity.  I can't do anything about the past 25 years, and I am not promised tomorrow, but each day I plan to live in the moment and live for me. Here is hoping my novel becomes a bestseller....

I will never forget September 11, 2001. It is the day I realized my own mortality.

Questions? Comments? Concerns?

Everything I Know...

Everything I know shares a common link.

No matter the topic, interest, person, place or thing it all shares a common link. That common link is me. Sorry to give away the secret 2 sentences into the very first blog post, but stay with me. Hopefully I can clearly write out what I am thinking so it can be understood.

Everything I know is linked through me. 

Everything I know shares a common link. That common link is me. I have been thinking about this for a while now. I will try to explain this as I see it. No matter how I attain knowledge or advice and regardless of the medium that I use (books, teachers, video, family, friends,etc) it is all filtered through me. Since everything I learn is filtered through my ideals and assumptions, this affects everything I know. Now, generally it doesn't effect things such as facts.
                      
               Examples: ice is frozen water, fire is hot and requires oxygen to burn, the sun is bigger than earth, etc.

But it DOES affect everything I have not personally experienced and/or something I am afraid/unsure of. The Unknown is a scary concept to me. "Will I keep this job?" "Should I quit?" "Should I go back to school?" Questions like this where my filtered knowledge/advice fail me. Asking other people who I am close to always yielded conflicting answers. Everyone always say if you are lost, go back to school or something. They were unable to help me in a decision, only further cement my fears of the Unknown. So I decided to try a different approach.

Another example of a common thought. I am afraid of heights. I decided I want to go skydiving. A lot of people said I shouldn't do it and/or that they were afraid of doing it. This eventually rubbed off on me. I assumed sky diving was something to be feared, that it will send my body and mind into shock. The problem is that I asked people who never did it or had no intention of doing it. They looked at the situation as: A) Thousands of feet in the air PLUS  B) Jumping out of a perfectly good plane = CRAZY!

So I decided to test this idea. My theory is to test if skydiving is scary or is the IDEA of skydiving scary because of a collective fear among my peers, family and coworkers......

So I jumped out of a perfectly good airplane :D

As I was racing towards the ground at 120 miles per hour with winds whipping in my face and the instructor on my back, I came to a conclusion.

                                                        THIS ISN'T SCARY AT ALL!

You might call me crazy but listen... I actually came to 2 conclusions during the jump. The first conclusion is that skydiving isn't that scary. And I realized why it isn't scary. When jumping out the plane, (and even flying up to appropriate height) my ears never popped and my stomach never felt like it was going into my throat. These are 2 common symptoms(for me at least), that caused me to be afraid of heights. Once those 2 things didn't happen, I was able to focus on the EXPERIENCE. Skydiving is an adventure that gives a view of the world that very few people can or will even try to experience.

The second conclusion is that I was actually never afraid of heights. I allowed the collective fear and objections of others to cloud my own judgement without actually attempting to try things first. This got me to thinking back to my initial thought (jobs, education, financial worry, etc) . I wondered once I passed the "Veil of the Unknown," will I actually be in a worse situation or is it merely a disguise to keep me from getting what I want? The way I see it, everyone fights for the comfortable middle (job, house, picket fence,etc) and I realized I don't want to fight for the average middle anymore. No matter how well I exceed, I will still be average. Great risks equal great rewards.

The purpose of this blog is to document my fears and decide what (if anything) I should actually be afraid of. It is also my personal journey in Life to let you see what risks and rewards I may encounter on my journey. This is only the first post, but the information covered in this post will carry through every post in this blog.


Tell me in the comments below what are some misconceptions that you had until you tested them.


NOTE:
I do have a video of my skydive experience. It will be uploaded shortly. Be sure to check back for the YouTube video. You can see the entire experience. Unfortunately, you WILL have to jump to get the best view :-)