I woke up later than usual since I have re-worked my schedule. I was able to finally sleep in until 7:00 AM rather than having to rise at 5:30! It felt good and I was mostly refreshed when I woke.
I always start the day with a glass or two of water, a spoonful of peanut butter with honey, a twenty minute workout of dips, pullups, pushups, crunches, and situps, right?! Well I didn't this morning, instead I walked out on to my balcony on the second floor of my apartment--which sits atop a big hill--and overlooks the entire city. From across the way on another hill I can see the campus and it's newly renovated football stadium, apartment complexes, and a sky-crane hoisting materials around the job site where a new dormitory is being constructed.
As I sit drinking my glass of water (ok it was a plastic cup) and looking over the city I thought about my goals, dreams, and the reality of where I am. I don't mean just geographically, though that did cross my thoughts, I mean where I am with my life. I have fallen short of 90% of the goals I have set for myself. That's a lot.
Just to give you an example of some of my goals that I have not reached (mostly because I'm lazy and complacent):
1. Marry my long-time girlfriend. We've been together for over five years and I haven't proposed.
2. Graduate in good standing within a field of my specific interest.
3. Create an outstanding business.
4. Become a good friend and reliable person.
5. Eliminate fear, doubt, and worry from my life.
6. Be Godly.
7. Achieve financial success.
8. Make new friends every week.
9. Travel to exotic locations.
10. Love unconditionally.
It's just ten things that most people have already accomplished at my age. Oh yeah, by the way I am 26.. I realized I have never mentioned that before so it's better to get it out there.
Another thing that has been on my mind a lot is a friend. I went to college with him for a year and half during my days in engineering. He was a petroleum engineering major and also on the football team. He came from Wyoming and was damn proud of it! Actually, I think he is still proud of it haha. But he's a really good guy. He didn't do well in his major but I think it was because he didn't really enjoy it. --You have to do what you're passionate about--. Now let me tell you something about this guy; he's thrives on high energy and is a total extrovert. I think this was the first time he came across something he couldn't do. In the middle of our second semester sophomore year he left back to Wyoming. I guess he'd had enough of Montana and engineering. I saw it as him quitting, just giving up and running away with his tail between his legs. I lost respect for him right there.
After that he fell into obscurity in my life. I rarely talked to him and didn't think much about what he was doing. I deleted Facebook and quit the whole social aspect of the internet so I didn't really know what he was up to. Come to find out, his life didn't fall apart. He was depressed or thrown into a spiral of doom like I thought might happen (yes I am a super depressing and dumb guy for thinking things like that). He had his ups and downs and wasn't happy with not succeeding in engineering but he ended up finding his true calling and discovering a kind of joy that most people, including myself, only dream of! He picked up a pen and notepad and went back to school. Studying business management in his home state of Wyoming he did well. Actually, well doesn't really describe it accurately. He did outstanding! While he was in school he took that knowledge and immediately applied it to creating his own business. That business led to another, which led to a third. While I was caught in one of the most depressing times of my life, he was out making money. Were not talking pennies and dimes, no way! He was making six figures within a year! It was absolutely insane and I had no idea any of this was happening.
Then one day out of the blue I received a text from him asking if I, or anyone I knew needed his services. I said no but decided to look into what he was doing. I was simply blown away. He had a new house, truck, nice clothes, and was living the dream. Huh, pretty interesting I thought, right? I brushed it aside and figured he just got lucky. Well, this lucky guy got even luckier then if that's what it was. He made connections, met a girl and within two months of meeting her they married! Turns out she has her own business as well and they work together on a lot of their projects.
Today, they have been married over a year, he has left his old-self and has become a man of intense power! I admire him more than almost anyone, and he doesn't know it. Along with his successful marriage, him and his wife travel around the world attending financial and self-help conventions, working, taking vacations, and freeing sex slaves around the globe! I cannot put into words how amazing of a person he has become and how I proud I am to call him my friend. He's taken it a step further and become a Christian, a very vocal and proud Christian at that! It's weird talking with him, looking at his Facebook profile, and now his own website that has his full name as the url, because he's become an entirely different person then who he once was. He has never stopped working! All this time while my life was on hold his was not. He picked himself back up and accomplished more as a result of his initial failure in engineering than he ever would have had he not failed.
Amazing!
I just thought I would share that because it's been on my mind a lot lately and it gives me hope and at the same time makes me feel ashamed of myself for being negative, egotistical, and lazy. Complacency and negativity are two of the worst habits a person can develop. It wears you down and crushes your soul, and defeats your mental edge. It prevents you from developing relationships, from liberating yourself from debt and financial strain, and can send you towards a black-hole-like depression.
Like any habit, it can be changed by substituting all the bad things for good ones. That what we all must do in life. Live as fruitfully and happily as we can through the creation of good habits!
