Don’t Live Without Passion.

It doesn’t take much thought to realize that life really is too short, so you just have to live every day with more passion! Time squandered, is time wasted.

Most people, when looking back at their lives, are in more pain over the things they didn’t do rather than over the things they failed at while trying to do them. Yes, I do believe most of us would rather try and fail than never try at all. Why is that? I think it’s in our nature as humans to want to receive long lasting and deep satisfaction from struggle and hard work, because even if we fall short of our objective, at least we know we tried.

I’ve certainly had my share of failures and tragedies. But I wouldn’t have it any other way because, in most of those failures, I’ve learned so many huge lessons that, in the long run, greatly enhanced my life.

Let me briefly tell you my own story. It was a “Sudden Death Wake Up Call”.

I had a pretty ordinary beginning into this life. Born in Portland, Oregon in 1944 (that means next year I hit the big 80 mark!), I was the second born in my family, so I was always trying to prove myself, to measure up to my older brother.

My life and my mindset were forever shocked and changed when, at the age of 15, my older brother died, literally, at my feet, while playing basketball. We were in an outdoor stadium halfway around the world in Ankara, Turkey. That one life-shaking event permanently altered my way of thinking, something that is with me to this very day, yes, even as I write these words. As I express myself and think about the big picture of life, it helps me understand that life can be gone in a moment. It’s a sobering thought.

Yep, we all have an end to our life, or as some people say, “Nobody gets out of here alive.” It doesn’t matter how rich or powerful you are, you and I really have a fairly short time to be here on planet earth. So, all of us need to live with passion right now and go after the things in life that we really want. Not only will you get more out of life, but it will also give you a great and powerful lift to your mind and body.

Next week I am going to write more about this event with my brother and how it pushed me to see the bigger picture of life and death. It makes me much more accepting of our hardships and every day it pushes me to live in this “right now moment”. I’ll write more about my early life and goals that I set for myself, some of which I reached but not all of them!