Living Happily Ever After

“It’s only possible to live happily ever after on a daily basis.” – Margaret Wander Bonanno

“Ever after” is today.  That’s it.

Your life is a mirror of your thinking

It’s as big as you thought.

It’s as adventurous as you thought.

It’s as easy as you thought.

It’s as fun as you thought.

It’s __fill in the thoughts you truly believe here _____.

Do what others won’t

“I will do the work because I know most other m’fers won’t.  Especially when I don’t feel like it.” – David Goggins

I usually don’t appreciate this kind of expression when trying to learn something, but something about David Goggins that I love.  His messages go right in.  His voice mainlines to what makes sense to me.  And he’s got the results to back it up.

If you do average things, you will be average.  If you do what everyone else does, you will get what everyone else gets.

Here’s a clean version that I think Jim Rohn said – “Do what most others won’t so you can live a life that most others can’t.”

What are you doing?

Just be present

Can’t focus?  Too many things to do?  Don’t know where to engage?

This long list is in your head or on a to-do list on your desk.  

The giant project is only towering in your head.

Forget all that.  One thing at a time.  Pick one.  Forget the rest right now.

You don’t have to force it. 

Just be calm – and be present to that one thing.

Embrace change – and being here

Difficulty is the terrain we grow on.  It’s not bad luck, it’s how we get better.

Show up fully for your difficulties.

Become stronger.  Figure it out.  Learn how to handle this so it no longer bothers you.

Stay engaged.

“And then what?”

You want to attain a big goal, get married, graduate, move, etc.

And then what?

And then you will be happy?  It doesn’t work just like that.  

Events don’t change us.

Learn to be happy with today – that is the best training for learning to be happy in a future that never comes.

Today.

Notice your thoughts

Most people notice their thoughts – they become them.  Me too.  

But it is a higher level to notice them without being them; to be the thought observer.

You understand that you are having a thought but you are detached from it. 

You see it, allow it, and recognize you are the thinker, not the thought.

Then you let the thought go away.

You are still here.  You didn’t go with it.  

If you get good at it, you can unchain yourself from your unproductive, painful thoughts, and become master over them.  You can choose what to allow and not allow.  

This is really big.  Try it.  

Be the observer of your thoughts.  Rather than “I am…”, say “I can see myself thinking…”, and then choose to accept it or let it go.

Your thoughts drive EVERYTHING in your life.

Take charge.

“Blueprint” – Think Daily with music

Did you know I put some of the greatest ideas from Think Daily to music?

Yea, I did it a long time ago.  You can get it on iTunes.  The full collection is called “Blueprint”.  (There is a track called Blueprint, but be sure to get the whole album.)

I had not listened to it in some time now.  After being away from it I gave it another listen while working in my barn a couple of weekends ago.

It was full of things I needed to hear.  

Isn’t that funny?  I recorded it, and I needed to hear it. 

Being an effective, happy, well-adjusted human takes training.  And that training is not something you do once and you are done.  

I can’t imagine the train wreck I’d be if I didn’t keep learning how to “operate” well in spite of my innate flaws.

Anyway, I am very proud of Blueprint, and very grateful to the musicians who made it work like it does.  

I think you will appreciate it too.

Let me know in the comments!

You’re a mash-up

Your life is not original.  You’re a mash-up of your mother and father.

You’re a mash-up of what and who you let into your life.

You are influenced by all these things you pay attention to and put together to be you.

That’s cool.

Knowing this, are there ingredients you’d like to change or add?

What happened at our Baja 1000 race this year?

Everybody is asking me, since I have not written about it yet.  Well, let’s just say that sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes you don’t finish because you broke the car at mile 55.

That’s life.

I hit a rock at mile 30 and got a flat.  Dustin changed the flat in 4 minutes “flat”.  So I was now babying the car a little because we would not see our chase until mile 80 where we could change the spare out.  If we got another flat, we would be in trouble. (Flashback to last year where we got two flats at the same time.)  

So we come around this corner of this easy graded road and a rut from the big 1000 hp trucks begins.  We are in it.  There is no steering out of it. Ruts are very common.  It is silty and you don’t want to slow down and get stuck.   The rut goes to three feet deep and at the end it’s a hard ledge exit.  There must have been a boulder underground.  The hard exit was hidden by all the loose silt in the bottom of the rut. 

BANG!  The sound of metal splitting.  We pull over.  Dustin gets to work on a broken ball joint.  While we are there I hear a car coming around the corner and hit record on my phone and get a buggy hitting the same rut and flipping over.  I runover and help the guys, and three of us manage to flip it right side up.  They regroup and get going.  Dustin is still working on the car and another buggy comes around the corner and hits the same rut.  He flips and rolls the car three times.  I go help them.  They are on their roof.  A father and son in their first race – welcome to Baja.  We couldn’t flip them over with man power so we flagged a passing race truck, tied a strap on to his bumper, he pulled them over real quick and left.  They got going.  Both buggies actually finished the race!

Meanwhile, Dustin went to put everything back together after having to take the hub off to get the ball joint out, and was wondering, “What is wrong with he geometry of all this – why won’t it go together right?”  Then he looks toward the center of the car, and the frame is split open.  “Damn!” (or something like that.) 

Race over.

Dustin tied the front end together with a strap, and to add insult to injury we got a flat tire on the same corner trying to pick through the brush to get back on course – a sharp stick.  The local racer told us where we could pick up a graded road back to the nearest paved road.  Dustin sat on the drivers side rear corner of the car to take weight off the badly wounded front passnger side and I nursed it at 7 mph for an hour and a half back to a place where the trailer could pick us up.

When we got to the road, there was a big tent a family had set up to serve food to race fans and race crews.  It was a whole family affiar out there along the dusty road.  I got a chicken tamale.  I am not much of a tamale fan, but I must say, it was heaven.  He asked for $6.50 for the tamale and Dustin’s burrito – I gave him $20.  It was worth $50 then and there.

It got dark and the crew finally got there to pick us up.  Only two of six in our class finished.  Dang.  

Welp…

There is always next year.

It was an opportunity to practice  – stoicism, controlling the controllables…not shooting the second arrow where you beat yourself up with the story of woe…I think I did pretty well.

Next, I will be racing the Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia.  It’s 13 days – about 500 miles a day – 6500 miles.  In that race I do not seek to win.  Finishing IS winning there.  But it is grueling.  It wears down all men to the nub.  I will back off 20% and go for a Sunday drive to see the Saudi Arabia countryside each day.  That’s what I am telling myself.  

Check out the Dakar Rally highlights on YouTube.  It starts Jan 3.