Its the little things

Today I learned some valuable lessons. I am quite sure that I have learned valuable lessons the past week or month, but have just not really shared them here. Today, I feel the need to share, so here goes. In no particular order.

Its hard to stick a needle into the vein of a person when they are having CPR done to them. Friends are a valuable thing. When you have been surrounded by them, you can take them for advantage. If you live far from the auto repair shop, and need a ride to pick up your car, and all of a sudden, your friend population went from high to low very quickly, it becomes hard to just find a ride. A vein may have a pulse if you press the hart hard enough. A car without a catalytic converter makes more noise than one with one. My dog likes to lick my feet after I get out of the shower. Dyeing is never pretty.

What does that all boil down to? That our time on this rock is limited by many factors, most of which are out of our control. Enjoy your life, enjoy your friends, enjoy the cold beer in the shower. Seek the small things that make life worth living because we are all going to die. Was today worth living?

Thats the question. Was today worth living? What happened today that made it worth living? I got to help some people today. Some people I hurt, but others I helped, perhaps its a wash. I have been blessed/cursed with an overly active optimistic perception of life. My glass is not half full, its brimming at the top with nothing but water tension holding the little bits of water from flowing over the side. (like when you pour a drink in a glass and its actually over the top of the glass, but makes a little bump that is actually taller than the glass, thank god for the hydrogen bond). I love life, I love the stupid little things that I see every day and the crappy things that happen, well, sometimes I love them as well.

Its not that I see life as a bouquet of roses. I see life as a box of everything beans from Harry Potter. There are a lot of flavors in the world, and some should not be made into jelly beans, but thats life, its full of shitty things right next to beautiful things and they may even look a lot alike, but the end taste is vastly different.

It was not always so. I used to be quite convinced that life was a boiling cesspool and you just had to survive one day at a time. Dont think about it too much, just try and survive one day at a time, one week. I just have to survive till my next hair cut, thats all. Dont try and think beyond that.

Life took a very interesting change for me in 2003. I met the most amazing woman in the world, I fell passionately in-love with her and all of a sudden life started to mean something wholly different. It was no longer a matter of survival to the next haircut, it was that life was a big thing, and that you can engage with it. I felt passion, fire, love. Those things moved me. They pierced my heart like nothing else ever had.

The sleeper had awoken.

It was not till we broke up that I truly started to taste this life. I found that I had passion for this woman, and that that passion could be tapped into, that I could become passionate about feeding the homeless, righting wrong, saving a life. Its not hard when you find that key that can unlock your potential. We humans are such amazing creatures, our potential is damn near unlimited. Yet the shit of this life seems to lock us into mediocrity.

Live life with passion. Find your joy and pursue it. Never give up. Follow your heart.