Photo by Grzegorz Chorus

Has anyone discouraged you lately?  Big ideas, dreams, and goals often incite opposition from those who wish to keep you in tact in their own world.  But you can do it.  The world needs you and your big ideas.  Read how you can honor your dreams and never let anyone pull you down.  Click here to read more….

Source: Michael Port

Greg Wyshinski, writer for Yahoo Sports, reported:

Elizabeth Hughes, 8, made her debut signing the national anthem at an AHL Norfolk Admirals (the Tampa Bay Lightning‘s affiliate) game against the Connecticut Whale (New York Rangers‘ affiliate). Angelic voice, bundle of nerves … and then after the words “gave proof,” her microphone abruptly cut out.

What happened next might be something we’ve seen before at a sporting event, but that never lacks for inspiration (and maybe a misty eye or two). There’s a moment around 1:30 into this clip that gives us hope for humanity:

Source: Yahoo Sports

Someone dear to me said his motto in life was “Dream it. Believe it. Create it.”

The act of dreaming and keeping imagination and passion alive is so important.

Today, remember your dreams or dream possibilities where you see none. It’s not necessary that you believe them right now, that will come, but it’s important you keep that wondrous childlike faith that all things are possible.

About two years ago I decided to do something I’ve always wanted to do…SkyDive. (Well…..strapped to someone who knows what they’re doing.) It was exhilarating! Fantastic! Mind-blowing! This was my controlled risk I wanted to take challenging every norm I’ve lived with my entire life. And it couldn’t have come at a better time.

You see, at the time my world was crumbling out from under me. I felt like Humpty Dumpty. I had abandoned my career to save my marriage (that ended up in divorce), I moved, I went through a total upheaval. I realized that I had to sift through the rubble to find what was left of me, pick up some pieces to try and redefine who I was, and get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

I knew I was in for a rocky road ahead, so I chose skydiving as a personal challenge to push myself beyond all my comfort zones. The way I figured it? If I can have enough courage, faith, and trust to jump out of a plane (without training, skill, or aptitude), what else could I do?

Willy Ley, in The Race For Space, said, “The point to remember is that a giant leap into space can be a giant leap toward peace down below.” Although Ley’s quote was an obvious reference to space exploration, I knew when I read it what I must do. My leap out of a plane was my giant leap towards peace in my own life here below.

Skydiving taught me about change, fear, and what your body and soul does when life comes at you hard. I remember the moment they opened the hatch on the airplane. There was this automatic survival safety switch thrown in me that said, “Oh my gosh! There’s an opening in the airplane! Cling to your seat!”

The irony is, in my head I knew I wanted to jump. I had signed up for it, paid for it, signed the waivers, had my parachute, and even had my tandem instructor by me the entire time. I had done the work, knew that’s what I came to do, but my body was on autopilot. And it wasn’t moving.

But then I got the courage to get to the edge.

Look, today’s climate of change in the world will make you want to cling to your seat and grab the “Oh Shit!” bars. It doesn’t matter that intellectually we understand we have to keep moving forward. We didn’t just forget that sometimes things don’t work out as planned. We know we have to adjust. But when the hatch flies wide open, it’s easy to just stay where you are even though you know you have everything within you to still keep moving forward with purpose.

So just be aware. Eventually, once you catch your breath and get comfortable knowing you’re just having an automatic reaction that is totally normal, you may eventually have the courage to walk to the edge and take a step into the exhilarating life you were meant to live.

Remember, you don’t have to jump out of a plane to awaken to your own life. Taking a leap includes anything that shakes your blood and get you moving towards the life you want. It could be as simple as submitting an article to a magazine, changing your hairstyle, volunteering for a cause, or enrolling in a class.

So get ready. Fear is part of the factor. What leap have you been suppressing or what leap will move you in the right direction? Are you ready? Maybe so. Maybe not. But all you have to do is take one small step…or go ahead and take one giant leap.

“We are very near to greatness: one step and we are safe. Can we not take the leap.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Get out and vote.  Let your voice, your choice, be heard.  Stand for something, raise awareness.  Be passionate.  And go!

• Find your polling station
• To Do:  Get a FREE Starbucks coffee after you vote
• To Do:  Get a FREE Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream scoop after you vote.

As we’ve witnessed these past few weeks, life can be messy. Writer Natalie Goldberg said it best in Wild Mind when she wrote “Life is not orderly. No matter how we try to make life so, right in the middle of it we die, lose a leg, fall in love, drop a jar of applesauce.”

Life derails us. Stocks go down, businesses go belly up, credit freezes, hockey moms run for office. So what? Dig into your one juicy life and make the most of it. Find one thing that you haven’t yet done and work towards it even though it may feel a little painful or hard to do for now.

Life, for every time it’s let you down, is there to show you that with every minute you breathe there is something you haven’t yet tasted. Some of it may be bitter, but rest assured, you’ll hit that sweet spot eventually if you haven’t already experienced it once or twice before.

So our new tag line for Make Every Day A Holiday, along with our new little icon – the green apple – is: Take a Bite Out Of Life. Because for those of us who try to make the most of everyday living, we understand that it’s organic. It’s imperfect. It’s ever-changing. It’s sometimes sticky, sometimes bitter or sour, and yes it’s sometimes sweet. But we never forget that this one life of ours is delicious in every way. The bad often makes us appreciate more of the good. Life is to be ingested, digested, processed and nourished. Life is to be lived.

I hope you always make the most of your today. May you always find a way to make every day a holiday. And if you need some ideas, you might want to check out the new holidaily feed on Twitter. I’ll give you 365 days and ways to make every day a holiday…or at least food for thought.

All my love,

Kelley

Uncertainty can crop up in anything though: a relationship, finances, job security, or even health crisis’ like finding a lump where none should exist surprise us. Switching careers, buying a home, taking a risk when you’d rather stay put – any of these things will come at us and throw us off balance at any point in our lives. What we do, how we react is up to us.

Uncertainty is part of living. Change is all around us. But happiness, or the search for it, requires an ability to tolerate uncertainty in the midst of chaos. There are ups, there are downs. Living means not being afraid of a skinned knee knowing that chances are they’ll happen when riding a bike. Knowing that you will come out on the other side of it, preparing accordingly, helps you stay grounded and sure of what lies before you.

In the coming days, years in fact, we’ll be seeing more gestures of uncertainty prevailing in the financial markets, global economy and world news. We may hear gloom and doom reports and unfortunately, they may not be inaccurate.

It’s important in uncertainty to not react so quickly. Buy! Sell! Yes! No! Cancer! Really, how can we really know unless we settle down and find the right answer for us? How can we know the right treatment unless we get to the root cause of what ails us or is impacting our present or future?

For now, if it seems too much to bear, calm down. Breathe. Lao Tzu said, “Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself?”

Uncertainty is uncomfortable, but clarity comes eventually. Don’t knee-jerk responses. Don’t fall under the weight of heavy information. Hang on. If you can tolerate the pain of uncertainty, relief is sure to come. Make a plan. Get clear. Hang in there.

My heart is with you,

Kelley Taylor

Also See:

Learn: How To Tolerate Uncertainty – Sort Of
To Be: Resilient
Hear: Keep Faith
My Wish For You: Courage to Fight The Good Fight

I recently picked up a book called “Teaching With Fire.” I’m not a teacher, I just liked the title. It was filled with all of these passionate poems and passages that just seemed to make sense to me.

I wanted to pass this one along to you and ask you, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

The Summer Day, By Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper, I mean –
The one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down –
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

(emphasis: mine)

Tim Russert was no head of state. He was never elected into office, he wasn’t a president of a large corporation, founder of an organization, leader of a nation, movie or rock star.
Yet with his passing, he has been mourned by media, politicians, business leaders, and common folk like you and me….for days now.

Shows have been dedicated to him, anchors have teared up over him as I’ve sat with my own box of tissue and bawled over a man I felt so connected to yet never known. The selfish side of me mourns that my son will not grow up learning politics through Meet The Press and more importantly how to ask the tough questions, know how to push when needed, and let it go when appropriate.

You see, I watched Meet The Press every Sunday like many watch a fight: on the edge of my chair, yelling at the TV (for him to ask the question), and when he did make his move (or called someone out using their own quote – because Tim always did his research and was prepared) I would shout and pump my fist because he just knocked. them. out.

Left now to wonder, who will EVER be able to take his place or simply take over the show, I am amazed at the tributes still continuing even today for Tim Russert.

Never before have I seen such an outpouring of love and affection, respect and admiration for someone that was so uncommonly common yet nothing like anyone I’ve known personally. He was powerful yet humble, brilliant yet down to earth, loved yet feared, unrelenting yet giving…this man, this great man, has astounded me with how authentic he really was true in his paradoxical contradictions. And it’s proven with every interview of people who knew him and loved him.

David Gregory, Sunday, on The Today Show said this:
“It is said that someone is wise not if he knows the answer but if he knows how to ask the question. As unfair as it is, this Sunday morning, Tim is silent. So we are left to do the probing, to examine why he was so loved, so loving, so sharp, so uniquely capable of walking with the kings and yet retaining the common touch.

A friend of mine has written that through death we realize that our mortality is always in the background giving vividness and urgency to our days.

Tim would tell us all to ‘go get’em’ and we will do that now with even more purpose because the big guy lead the way as the moderator of all moderators, as a mentor, and as a man.”

For all that we the people say about him, it will never be enough. And so in my weak attempt to be wise, I ask: Do we live our lives the same way Tim Russert did? In the same way?

Do we remain loving, open-hearted, authentic, true, loyal, always learning, always giving, standing for something, professional, unrelenting in the pursuit of fairness and justice and truth for ourselves and for others? Do we do our homework and do it well? Do we look for both sides of the story? Do we remain humble no matter what success comes our way? Do we help others along the way?

If for no other reason, we can look at the life of this man and use it as an example of someone who really got it. He knew how to live. He extracted every bit of life in his short 58 years which will never be enough for all of us, but were mighty packed for him.

Yes, I think Tim Russert would tell us to “go get’em” as in GO GET LIFE. Live for your today’s, tomorrow’s, and honor your past. Live with an open heart, always look for what you CAN do, and love freely, honestly, and magnificently.

In the end, if we’re lucky, we might have half as many people honoring us as he did – or yet, the people who matter most to us.

Go Get’em!

Always in Honor of Tim Russert, 1950 – 2008

(Live the dash! Make Every Day A Holiday.)