Today Is The Best Day Since Yesterday

Lately I’ve had some very deep conversations and continue to learn how to play this game called life. 

The school I go to, we learn by doing. 2 Days ago, I broke an internal part on the Autopilot system worth $3000.

It was fixed today for less than a dollar. 

My instructor, Mike Mahoney, is a 56 year old man who looks as if he is 30. From developing the communication recievers on space suits, to fixing many many machines, and doing R&D at Ball Aerospace, he is now our instructor. 

After class today I decided to visit Mike’s office and through a series of interrelated topics we started discussing health, life philosophies and the development of character. This man has touched my life forever. I thought I would share these words with you as it was shared with me moments ago. Hope this perspective benefits you.

***At a young age, surrounding ourselves with great people who are positive influences will determine how we grow as individuals. If you want to be great, you must surround yourelf with great people. Stand on the shoulders of past generations and learn from the wisdom they have gained throughout their lives. I’m no different than you, I’ve just traveled farther down the path and have hit all the potholes.

And I can tell you, Success isn’t fancy cars, nice clothes, a big house, all these toys. I don’t care if you have all that; I don’t care. That is not success. Success is health. If I take your health away you have nothing. We are a system. Our bodies and minds are a system. We have to keep healthy in every aspect of our lives, physically, spiritually, emotionally, holistically, logically…everything.. It’s all interconnected and looking at it from every perspective allows you to see the big picture. Hurting physically will effect our emotions and all other parts of the system. Stress will make for a downward slope. Fast. Especially after you reach 50. Physiologically when we reach 50, our bodies go through some significant changes. We have to keep moving: Movement is life. My dad was injured at work one day, lost half of his foot, and his physical activity stopped for nearly 2 years… I watched him age about 15..  When my wife and I reached 50 we decided; now is the time, we can’t let our guard down or else life will catch up to us fast. We must excercise, eat healthy, and take care of ourselves. We also can’t get wrapped up in our past mistakes and failures or they will bring us down. Failure is innevitable. That is something we all must accept. 

For a lot of people failure causes stress, but we can take these failures and turn them into something positive. simply by looking at what happened and say to yourself, “why did I fail” and “what did I learn” “what can I do next.” This is the healthy way to approach problems because failure is simply part of life. If someone doesn’t accept failure, they fail in the most detrimental way possible. Never lose your capacity to learn. To overcome failure, we must accept it, and learn from it. Fail Forward. 

It’s a guiding force for me to spread positivity and happiness to every person I meet. I think it’s our obligation as humans to help others and give others positive emotions so that it spreads. Simply Acknowledging others and listening can achieve this. I encourage you, to look at people and interact with people as if they are human beings, not just shadows. Human beings who have experiences, emotions, and failures, just like you: they have happiness, saddness, love, and pain. We are all human beings with the same forces acting upon us, we must help each other to grow and evolve as human beings. 

For example, I love quotes. One of my favorites is “As the twig bends, so grows the tree.” The older you get, the more your life tree grows. As young as you are, you have the ability to build a straight foundation, a strong foundation, a stable foundation, so that when your tree is fully grown it can withstand the weather and the constant changes happening around. 

I’ve always told my kids when they were young: There is no such thing as a small choice. Choices accumulate. Our poor choices when we are young have a compounding effect that will catch up with you. It’s not the major choices that throw us for a loop and effect us physically, emotionally and spiritually, its the effect of stacking multiple small choices that ultimately change our path and form the majority of our character. Every choice changes the path we are on, that’s why I’ve always said: be careful about the choices you make, make sure that they don’t conflict with who you truly want to be.

I also told my kids to “LIVE LIFE WITH INTENTION” We must have life goals, we must know what we want, only then can we truly live our lives to the fullest. I was a 60’s child, where the philosophy was just go with the flow man. That’s great. For a little bit. But it’s better to be the person paddling the row boat up stream when those who are going with the flow are floating downstream towards a waterfall. Live Life with Intention. Form Positive habits. Make constructive choices. Fail Forward. Stay Healthy. 

Human Beings are capable of so much. Our experiences form who we are and we ultimately have the choice to change our environment at will simply by changing the choices we make. Everything is interconnected. We are all interconnected.