On your mark, get set, GO!

Who hasn't played a game when they were younger when this is how you started every race? Yesterday, I was told that my advice is good but that it takes action to make things different. I agreed with that statement. If we are satisified enough (about anything - government, our job pay, our marriage), then we will continue to look around any imperfections because it does not mean enough to change anything. That is the status quo. No ruffling feather, no tipped apple carts, etc. However, when you get to that point (and that point is different for everyone), where you are no longer able to ignore the things that make us unhappy (a marriage, bad working conditions, etc), then that is where you make changes. Sometimes those changes are difficult ones where people might get hurt. Maybe there is a lot of uncertainty and the fear of the unknown. We all have that. But if you are at that point, when you know you cannot go back or stay still, then moving forward is your ONLY choice, even with the unknown in front of you. We don't have all of the answers, and do not think I do. I don't. But if with every decision we made, thinking with everything we have in our gut - right at that moment - that it was the right one. So we make it. Maybe we have regrets about it later, but maybe we forgive ourselves about it because we have to in order to move on. Don't get land-locked and feeling like there is no way out. There is a way out, but it may mean it will not be easy. Nothing is ever just given to you...you have to earn it and that is why achieving any goal is so much sweeter when it was something you can look back and say, "I deserve that." So, people of planet Earth - I implore you to do something different today...expand your horizons...reach for something you think is just out of reach...ON YOUR MARK, GET SET, GO!!!

Are you frustrated yet?

Do you sometimes feel like you are that little hamster running around inside your cage on you rlittle plastic wheel and wondering why you are never getting anywhere? Those hamsters run around for maybe a variety of reasons: they like exercise, they like not going anywhere, their brains are not big enough to process anything more. I am sure we look like "hamsters" when we get on exercise equipment that takes us no place, but we merely do that for exercise. Don't you want to be somewhere different? Do something different? Be more? In one week, my life changes gramatically and I hope other lives change as well. I was motivated to write this blog after reading one of the quotes I have in my office. It says, "Frustration should create action, not make you want to give up." I know I used to want to give up. Who doesn't? At least sometimes? When you see something wrong, don't you want to fix it? Don't you want to at least try? I remember several years ago when there an intersection near our house was too dangerous for the neighborhood children to cross to get to and from school every day. Several other parents I talked to told me all the same thing - "We already tried."; "The officials won't do anything."; and "blah, blah, blah." So, I invited those same officials out to watch a typical morning commute and I recall asking one gentleman, "Would you allow your children to cross here?" His immediate reply, "No way." I followed that up with, "Then why should I let mine?" A trip to the county offices, a little publicity, and they came up with a solution. Not my solution, but one that was better than what we had at the time. In fact, in the past 15 years, several improvements have been made to make that intersection safer still. An Army of One. One Voice. These are all things that can create change in the world. Get frustrated and make that frustration fuel what motivates you into action. Do something! I get annoyed when people wil sit and complain about something but do nothing to change it. If it bothers you THAT much, then either live with it the way that it is or do something different. Someone once called me an "idealist" - that I was loving the ideas of what should be but wasn't accepting the way things are. If we all did that, then nothing would change. "Create the change you want to see in the world." MOVE!!!!!