A Thought on Living Without Fear

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” –Theodore Roosevelt

 It is said that of all the words in all the tongues of men, that saddest are those of “it might have been.” Often times in life, our fear of what could happen or how we could fail overcomes our desire to progress and we are left utterly paralyzed in inaction. As we watch the world pass us by, we utter a wish for more courage and bravery. But there must come a moment when we rise above our fear. We must make our wish reality. We must cast off the chains of self doubt and worry and rise toward the light so that we may have our day in the sun.

The greatest enemy we will ever face is that voice inside each of us that tells us that we will never be good enough. It tells us that we are weak and unworthy of achieving that which we desire. I tell you here and now that that voice lies. The greatest gift that God has given us is the free will and the ability to choose who we are and who we will become. Each and every day that we rise we are faced with a choice: do we cower and live in fear while our lives pass us by, or do we dare greatly, pursuing the dreams that we hold so dear? Even if we fail, we fail with the knowledge that we tried, that we gave our very best, and that at the very least we made a valiant effort toward a goal worth fighting for. Even in that failure, there is experience gained. Even in that failure, hope, the greatest and most essential of all human conditions, remains. And with that hope, remains the possibility of redemption.

My friends, we have but one life to live. May we live it well, without regret or fear. May we live it in such a way that at the end, when we stand before the Almighty and are asked to account for our time here on this earth, we can reply that we lived each moment with the courage to pursue the desires of our hearts, that we held on to the hope of a better tomorrow, and that we sought the goodness in the world. May we say that we lived our lives intentionally and with purpose.

A Thought on the Superhero

Ever wonder why we all love superhero movies? I think it’s because superhero movies remind us of how we wish we could be. In most movies they have a weakness that they must over come, and that's what makes them so great. They remind us that if we try hard enough, if we stand for what’s good, if we endure and fight with every fiber of our being for what’s right, then maybe we can overcome our weaknesses and then change the world.  

Sometimes we humans need something to hang on to. Sometimes we need a symbol to rally around or a cause to support. Sometimes we need something to place our faith in, something to hope for, something to hope in. And sometimes, we have to be that hope for someone else. Sometimes we have to face our fears and throw off the darkness that enshrouds us so that our own inner light can shine forth and be the beacon that points the direction for others. And as scary as that is, as hard as that may be, sometimes that’s what is required of us. Sometimes that is what we are meant to do. Sometimes that’s our destiny. Sometimes we can be the superhero just by inspiring those around us. So if there’s someone in your life that needs that hope, be that beacon for them. Show them what’s right. Inspire them! Be their hope, because if you won’t who else do they have?

A Thought on Evil

One of the greatest philosophical battles of all time centers on the belief in a good and just God in the context of all the evil that exists in this world. In every day life, this problem manifests itself in questions like "Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?" or "Why does God hate me?" Thousands of philosophers, theists, believers, atheists and everyday folk have argued over this question for as long as man has doubted the belief in a higher power. Most of the arguments for God center on a belief in free will or that God allows evil to exist because without evil good could not exist. Other arguments deny a belief in true evil or say that perhaps God is not able to create a world where no evil existed. While I tend to support the Free Will defense, I have decided that I believe in an alternative view. Perhaps its not evil that matters so much, but rather our reaction to it.

The power that evil possesses is a product of the fear that we as humans exhibit. When we rise above the fear, evil loses its power. That’s not to discount pain, and suffering, anguish, and grief, agony, and sorrow, because surely these things exist. We have all experienced them in one way or another. But rather the point is to recognize that these feelings are simply emotions and tactile reactions to a hostile world. When we remember that, they can be endured, overcome. We can rise above the pain. We are strengthened, lifted up. We can fly free, even in captivity. When we reach the point that we can exhibit selfless, celestial grace unfeigned, when we can forgive without thought to retribution, revenge or compensation, when we can let go of our hatred and our selfish, misguided sense of justice, when we can exhibit the tender mercy of God through our every thought and action, then evil ceases to matter and the battle is won. I think that’s the point that most people in this debate miss. Evil is not an end in itself, but rather a challenge to be overcome.

A Thought on Attitude

Each of us will face difficulties in our life. We will have trials and obstacles to overcome. We will experience defeat and we will suffer and bleed and eventually die. We will feel pain and sadness, misery and sorrow. We will lose loved ones and experience loss and grief. Very few of us are immune to the evils of this world, but as certain as I am that we will face these challenges, I am equally as certain that we are naturally endowed with the strength to overcome them. One of the tools that we are provided with for this task is the ability to control our attitude and how we react to whatever life throws at us.

 One of our tasks as individuals is to make meaning in our own lives. No one else can do that for us. And while I believe we are the product of our experiences, we are also defined in part by our reactions to those experiences in the first place. For example, a basketball player may attend grueling practices every day in preparation for a game. His coach may push him and make him run and do all sorts of painful exercises, hoping to strengthen him. The player may work hard, and at the end of each practice be so sore that he can hardly move. An outsider who doesn’t’ understand why the player does this might say “This is horrible. He’s in pain! This is torture. That coach should be imprisoned for inflicting such evil on that poor soul!”While the basketball player understands why he is being pushed and accepts that if he endures these hardships, he will do better in the game to come.

 Perhaps no better definition of this principal exists than that penned by Viktor Frankl:

“We who lived in the concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: The last of his freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

 And so it is with life. If we believe that the hardships we face are designed to make us better individuals, then the evils we face are diminished, until such as time as we don’t see them as evil anymore, but rather trials and exercises in faith. So the next time challenges are on your horizon, see them for what they truly are: opportunities to grow. Go out and meet them head on. Embrace them with a thankful heart and a determination worthy of the champion inside of you! Good luck!

A Thought on New Year's.

New Year’s, contrary to what those closest to me think, is actually my favorite holiday. It is a day dedicated to the notion of Hope. Hope. It’s such a simple concept and yet it is at the same time, so complex and so powerful. It is said, that with Hope, all things are possible. I believe in that statement, because at the end of the day, even through Life’s greatest struggles, if we can hold on to Hope, we can endure. We can climb back out of the deepest, darkest places in our lives and rise again, stronger than ever before.

I find it fitting that New Year’s is both a celebration of the New as well as the Old. One cannot exist without the other. As we reflect on our past, we prepare for our future. Just as each practice prepares an athlete for the next competition, each moment in our life prepares us for the next and for all those to come.

 Today is a new day; a day to start things off right, a day to change our stars. But it is also a day to remember those that we’ve lost, and to pay homage to their memories. It is a day to learn from our past mistakes and to reflect on the lessons that life has taught us.  It is a time for us to have a new beginning, a new start, a new and clean slate. It is a time to start over. New Years is a chance for redemption, and that is the greatest gift of all.

 This New Year’s I hope that you remember what this time is about. Take the chance to start over. Take the chance to do good in the world. We need more of it. Be someone’s miracle or dream come true. Grant a wish.  Love someone. Be a light in a world so often filled with despair, and turmoil, and darkness. In the words of John Rzeznik, “Tonight’s the night the world begins again.”  So wherever you find yourself this New Year’s, I wish you a happy and hope filled New Year. May 2013 be better than ever before.

A thought on Ethics.

There are moments in life when each of us is presented with choices to make. Sometimes these choices are easy, and sometimes they are difficult. I have always dedicated my life to trying to make the right choices as I see them. You see, I have patterned my life on a set of moral values and ethics that my upbringing and experiences have imparted in me, and for me the world is a very black and white place or at least most of the time it is. But as I get older, it seems to me that there are far more areas of differing shades of grey than I once believed. So how do we deal with those choices:  the choices where no action is one hundred percent morally or ethically right and yet the choice still needs to be made? What then?

The answer is sometimes there is no right answer. Sometimes there really are no win situations.  To some, this might seem like a pessimistic approach, but I disagree. I believe that if we acknowledge that fact, we can move on to facing whatever obstacle or challenge awaits us as a result of our choice. The key here is simply that you have to make the choice that you can live with. At the end of the day, whatever moral code or guiding principles that you subscribe to has to be satisfied. Otherwise, you will destroy yourself. There is a scene from one of my favorite TV shows that illustrates my point.  The hero is lying badly injured and perhaps dying in a hospital bed after undergoing immense hardship in order to save a major city from sure destruction. To do so, he has had to break many laws and do things that most of us would find, at the very least, unethical. However, there is still a threat out there that could potentially threaten the lives of the city’s inhabitants. The hero’s partner knows that she can stop the threat, but she will similarly have to disregard some of the same laws and rules that the hero has in order to do so. As he lays there she approaches him and asks his advice.

“ Hero: I can’t tell you what to do. I’ve been wrestling with this all my life. When I see fifteen people held hostage on a bus, everything else goes out the window, and I’ll do whatever it takes to save them and I mean whatever it takes. You know, maybe I thought, if I save them, I can save myself.”

Partner:  “Do you regret anything that you did today?”

Hero: “No. But then again, I don’t work for the FBI.”

Partner:” I don’t understand.”

Hero: “You took an oath. You made a promise to uphold the law. You cross that line, it always starts off with a small step. Before you know it, you’re running as fast as you can in the wrong direction just to justify why you started in the first place. These laws were written by much smarter men than me. And in the end, I know that these laws have to be more important than the fifteen people on the bus, I know that’s right. In my mind, I know that’s right. But I just don’t think my heart could ever have lived with that. I guess the only advice I can give you is try to make choices that you can live with.”

So folks, that’s my advice to you. Life can be difficult and eventually, we will all be faced with what seems to be an impossible situation. When no choice seems right, make the choice that is you can live with and have faith. We all have been granted the knowledge of right and wrong. We all have been given our agency to make whatever choices we choose.  But in the end, we all have to live with ourselves and God. Make sure that no matter what, when you look in the mirror, you can look yourself in the eye with self-respect, and dignity, and that on that final day, you will be able to say “I did the best that I could.”

A thought on failure.

One of the questions I always used to find myself asking was "What is my purpose here?" I used to have this plan for my life: where I wanted to be, how my family would turn out, what job I was going to have, even what kind of home I wanted. But I never could get all the pieces to fit together just right. If it wasn't one thing, it was something else. I went from always knowing success to all of a sudden knowing failure, defeat. No matter what I did, something would happen to dash my ambition. Failure. Its an interesting word. Its so negative, so final. I used to say that I'd never fail at anything I really wanted. I've learned that that's not true. In life, we will experience failure. We will be defeated. We will fall, sometimes through no fault of our own. That's just the way life works. But the true test is this: Will we get back up? No failure no matter how devastating and overwhelming is complete if we refuse to give up. I don't know if our destiny or fate is predetermined or not, I don't believe it is, but regardless, we must always retain hope that things will turn out however they are supposed to be. This has been such a hard lesson for me, but I think that perhaps I've finally come to understand it. Keep your hopes alive. Keep dreaming. Keep fighting!