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Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny. – Lao-Tzu
Are you happy? Are you where you want to be in life? Do you feel like you’ve lost your edge? Consider the following: You only have one shot-not at happiness, or love, or success-you have only one shot at life. Your life will end altogether too soon, so there is no time to waste in crappy moods or thoughts. There are no survivors on this earth, so why do you throw away your few precious seconds living a life you don’t enjoy? Would you like to change that? This is not a BS self love book. This is an easy to understand manual, a map, that will lead you to the life you want to live. This manual contains 17 life lessons that will help you to transform your autopilot mentality into a magical awareness and appreciation for the short gift of life we’ve all been given. The world will not conform to your wishes. People will not change for you. You should not change for people, yet you should change your perspective for yourself. Even Gandhi told us: Be the change you wish to see in the world.
Let me begin this book with a story. When I was thirteen years old, I had a recurved bow. I got bored with firing arrows at a bale of hay, so I started letting them loose all over my grandma’s property just to watch them soar. The property was rife with oak trees, and some of those arrows vanished, never to be seen again.
One cloudy day, a storm threatening rain and winds blowing, I was walking around the back end of the property. I was standing beside the trunk of an oak, my mind wandering aimlessly, when something on the ground in front of me drew my attention. I can’t recall what it was, nor do I recall if I discovered what it was, because no sooner had I taken a step that something else drew my attention. I turned around.
A blue arrow had sunk about six inches into the soft ground where I had been standing. That arrow would have sunk right into my skull had not something made me move. It might have killed me, or it might have just made me a vegetable; it really doesn’t matter either way. What was important was the fact that I knew then, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that life ends. Life is short. There are no survivors on this earth.
Perhaps I was fortunate—obviously, I was fortunate enough to survive, but the question was why? God’s will? Perhaps, but more importantly than my survival was the lesson I received from the universe: You have one shot—not one shot at happiness, or true love, or following your dreams; you have one shot at life, and to waste even a single moment of it is beyond idiotic. Life is too short for missed opportunities.
I’m in my thirties at the time of writing this book, and since that day, I’ve maintained a special state of awareness, one that involves feeling the ever-presence of death, and before I make any decision, I ask myself if it’s a decision for which I’m willing to die. You see, if something hadn’t drawn my attention when I was thirteen, that might have been the end of my life, so a decision as seemingly insignificant as taking a step meant the difference between life and death, and each decision we make leads a little farther down the path of life, or it might lead us to our demise. My life since then has been lived with a magical feeling, and every action I perform, I perform with joy and alertness because it could be my last one.
Something as simple as driving to the store for a beverage can lead to a deadly car wreck. Leaving for the store at five instead of six can lead to my doom. Drawing money from an ATM can lead to a run in with a gun-toting mugger. Walking through a park during a storm might mean getting struck down by lightning, or the wind blowing a rotted branch, making it fall onto my head.
Do I dwell on the eventuality of death? Nope. Instead of focusing on the negative aspect, I choose to harness the potency of the positive aspect—I’m not dead yet, so there is still time to enjoy life, but then, why would I ever waste a minute doing something I don’t want to do? Why would I ever place myself in a position in which I don’t wish to be? Why would I ever perform an action for which I don’t care? My life is precious—every single second of it, so, too, is yours.
I’m writing this book because I don’t like the world in which I live. Don’t misunderstand that sentiment. I enjoy my life. I love the earth, but the world of which I speak is the world as perceived by mankind, a world of hurt feelings, regrets, wasted moments, comfort zones, poor decisions, and an overall disregard for the beauty, the commodity, and short expectancy of life. Too many of us don’t regard life as the magical thing it is, and by disseminating this knowledge, I’m putting something out into the universe, so, too can you.
