Vintage

I've come to realize the greatest moments of my life have been great because of their quality and not their length. A word that comes to mind is "vintage". Some people use the word to mean "old" but it doesn't just mean that. It really conveys something as "Classic, prized, and stylish".

It's kind of like buying an old car. There are a bunch of old cars I could save up to buy if I wanted to do so. If I spent a few thousand on a 1984 Oldsmobile some might wonder what the heck I was thinking. However, if I saved up and bought a 1969 Mach 1 Mustang (Pretty much the sweetest car ever!) no one would question my taste despite it being a much older vehicle.

Many times I have been outside at sunset. Tonight I taught my son how to play baseball as the sun faded in the background casting an orange hue onto everything outside. Watching him laugh as he hit the ball and "line-drived" me and then me picking him up and pretending to throw him in the back of my truck for it is forever etched into my brain. I've seen many sunsets. Most I will not remember. I remember that one though. Like a vintage car stands out from the rest as being memorable, tonight sticks in my brain because the quality of it.

That's what I think about life. I want my time on earth to not just waste away but be spent in the best quality possible. By quality I don't mean to refer to financial quality but relational quality. Let my days be filled with peace and not drama. Let my obstacles make my victories sweeter and my enemies become the fuel to ignite my heart with passion to do and to be more! At the end let me look back on this life and say I left nothing undone and I put it all on the table.

When my time comes let it not be thought of as just another soul moving on but a soul that was made fully alive. One of my favorite movie lines is from the movie Braveheart which says, "Every man dies, Not every man truly lives".

Self Destruct

I'm starting to realize that one thing that separates people who accomplish little from people who accomplish extraordinary amounts is their ability to bounce back from defeat. Often, it's easy to feel like successful people always win. Nothing can be further from the truth. Everyone fails. In fact, it seems like the harder you try new ways to get ahead in life the more opportunities there are to fail in the process. The difference between a successful person and an average person then is that a successful person will not spend time wallowing in their defeat. 

"It seems it's really about how well you can take a hit and bounce back. It's also about how long you are going to take to feel sorry for yourself before you decide to get up, dust yourself off, and move forward." -Barbara Corcoran

I've found that most people think that they bounce back from failure quickly but in reality most don't. Sometimes we like to stay angry because it's easier and it feels good. Other times we allow our sarcastic inner voice narrate our behavior for weeks until we are ready to let go of the fact we missed the mark.

I recently realized this truth in my own life. I had set a personal goal to achieve in two months and about a month and a half into it I failed miserably one day. My first instinct was to say internally, "I suck. I failed again. I might as well binge and continue failing until I can muster up enough willpower to start over again later". Luckily before I could carry out that destructive thought process it hit me that that is why some people continue to lose in life. Not because they failed once but because they internally say, "Oh well" and wallow in their defeat until their conscience feels they have payed the debt for their mistake. This is how people keep themselves from growing, getting better, and experiencing breakthroughs in their lives and in the changing of their character. It's self-defeating behavior that most never realize they are even doing (Including me). 

The sad part is that many people who aspire to live healthy, live pure, and live successfully will never live that way because they are so busy self-destructing that they miss opportunities day after day to reach new heights. They suppress themselves. Lord, help us not to be our own worst enemies! Help us to be what You want us to be!