It's definitely been a while since my last post, but here I am, I am still standing. Through all of the nonsense, some self inflicted, but dealing with nonsense from the other aspects of life, I am still here. I was told when I was in 3rd grade that I was nothing more than a stupid spic that would never be more than a janitor, or a city worker. This was from my third grade teacher...bless her soul. Since third grade, I have traveled the world, fought in wars, flown a fighter jet, flown a tanker jet, became a private pilot, trained over a hundred airman in the USAF, served for 17 years, and thats just the beginning.
I have been certified as a coach, mentor, speaker by one of the most renowned leadership gurus in the world, John C. Maxwell, started my own business, and I am a single dad. Pretty good for some dumb spic who was never supposed to amount to anything. I have had my fair share of failures and heartbreaks. I am divorced, I have been forced out of the military, because of failed leadership, I have lost thousands of dollars, have lost a home, lost cars, but through it all I am still here.
I was watching a video of Simon T. Bailey on Goalcast and he had a powerful message. He was speaking about how by the time we are 17 years old, we hear the word "No" over 150,000 times and only the word "Yes" 5000 times. He was speaking about how we focus more on who we aren't, rather than who we are. See, I resonated with that because I was always told, like many of us, how I couldn't do something, or how I didn't have what it takes to be someone important. He also spoke about how he went through a divorce, like myself, and how he lost an important moment with his daughter to add significance to her. How he was caught up in prepping for a business trip, rather than taking the time to listen to what she had to say.
Our life is made up of moments, brief moments where we either seize them, or watch them pass us by. We can either choose success, or we can choose to be significant. We can choose to buy the house, or we can create a home. We can either choose whats worth more, the large paycheck, or the moment that we will never get back. Our society wants us to believe that having stuff is what determines your level of success, happiness, and significance. That's all a bunch of lies!
Every time we turn on the news, or watch a show, they are telling us how we need to live our life based on their ridiculous standards, or else you are some type of horrible person. They want to keep us in a box where we feel horrible about becoming significant, but achieve their level of success they have determined for us. The problem is that their standards, aren't really standards at all. Their life isn't our life to live, but we get fooled into thinking thats exactly what we are supposed to do.
We have been told "No" so many times that when we are in our 30's it becomes part of our programing and we give up. We give into what they say we are, and focus on what we are not, and give up on what God said who we are....people of significance and purpose. We trade the life we have dreamed of, for the life society tells us we need to have. It's all mapped out for us. We are supposed to go to school, go to college, get a job, save money, start a family, retire, and hopefully enjoy a vacation.
They don't tell us how to live our life, except vicariously through actors on TV, and how our morals should be based on someone else opinion, rather than truth. How we should be at a certain level of success, or progress at a certain age, rather than celebrate personal achievements of a family. We see more and more families being torn apart, and kids being indoctrinated about how they should feel, and not understand how sometimes defeat builds us up to be stronger people.
Studies have shown how our brains literally build neurological pathways to wire ourselves to think we aren't good enough. We literally program ourselves to think negatively, and think more about who we are told we are, and then believe we have a purpose. We "identify" with something, but confuse that with our character, and use it as a mask so we don't feel like we are special, or see how imperfect we all are. Fact is, perfection is an illusion, but that doesn't mean we can't hold ourselves to a higher standard. We are too afraid to face ourselves in the mirror and see where we made our mistakes, or be told that we did, and the result is trading in a false reality, for sake of not feeling pain. In the end we hurt ourselves more, and set our standards lower.
Rather than reaching for the stars we are tripping over our own feet. We are told if we are reaching for those stars we are being hurtful to others and we shouldn't stand out. We are constantly telling our youth that being special or different is bad, but get mad when the picture painted is blurry and confusing. It's time to start saying "Yes" to higher standards, it's time to stop blurring the lines, and hold ourselves to higher standards. It's time to look at ourselves in the mirror and face what we did wrong, and say we can fix it, and hold ourselves accountable.
Time to start telling those who told you that you can't, and tell them you just did, and there isn't anything wrong, or anything that they can do about it!