You have a higher purpose

Stuck on the treadmill of life? Same day same routines. Somebody once said that the only difference between a “grave” and a “rut” is that a rut is for living people.

How true.

We become conditioned over time to accept patterns and then become a slave to those patterns. We have emotional patterns, mental patterns, physical patterns, financial patterns, and spiritual patterns.

There are patterns of power and patterns of self-sabotage.

“Pattern Awareness” is the first step to a living a life of higher purpose and deeper meaning.

What patterns are controlling you?

Numbering My Days…

I’m done measuring my life in years. I read the title of some book in the bookstore about counting your life in days and now I’m obsessed with managing the days of my life. Today is 16,007 and day 16,008 is fast approaching. I should probably buy the book and read it. It probably would have given me some way to plan, organize and set solid goals for the future. I probably wouldn’t be stressing over the concept as much. But for now I just keep thinking that I have lived 16,007 days and have very little success that has been built by my hands.

That’s not say I haven’t built anything successful. I have helped build some great things. I helped build five little kids. I wasn’t much help after that. I contributed little to the building of their lives. That heavy construction was taken on by a wife on whom the sun rises and sets. Outside of that I’ve struggled to build anything of great reputation. Oh, I’ve talked about better days. I talked about doing big things. Really big things. I convinced myself that big days were coming. One day. Someday. I never said the exact day. Maybe I should have. I should have said, “On day 7,665 I’m going to finish college.” “On day 9,125 I will have completed my Master’s Degree and will be moving up in the company.” “Then on day 10,950 I’ll be making six figures and be able to take my family on a great vacation to Disney World.” “Day 20,075 will come and I’ll retire from the day job to take consulting gigs and enjoy my kids getting married and having my grandchildren.” I think I should have planned it that way. I would wrap it all up on day 36,500. I’ll be in my rocking chair on the front porch holding my wife’s hand.

My family needed me to number my days. My wife pleaded with me to number them.  To plan more.  To provide more.  To pursue more. It took me until day 14,182 to start numbering them. That was the day my wife told me she couldn’t do it anymore by herself. Up to that point we had been married for 6,570 days. I had only spent 1,000 quality days actually together with an amazing person. Many days I was there in the same house with her but it was still a wasted day. I wasted a lot of days like that. Just as pathetic was the lack of quality days with my kids. Maybe I got in 200? How sad is that? It was my fault. Incredibly she loved me for (almost) every one of those days. I know she didn’t like me very much.

With her ultimatum, I got busy. I’ve made progress. The last 1,700 days have been completely different. We have spent 1,473 quality days together. The kids finally got a dad plugged in almost every day. It only took 1,460 to 5,110 days depending on their age for them to get a better dad.

That doesn’t mean I haven’t had some bad days. On day 14,665 I was diagnosed with a thyroid issue. On day 15,870 I developed another huge health issue. It may not shorten my days but it sure will take some pleasure out of them. I know there are more bad days coming. But there are going to be thousands of better days.

No matter what happens, I live under no illusion – my days are numbered. So are yours. We don’t know the number. But there’s a number. I hope mine is 36,500. But I’m going to live the rest of my life with huge plans for those days that are left. This time with purpose. This time with conviction. This time with a drive to grow and contribute to those I love.  I do not want to look back from day 32,014 and regret any day past day 16,008.

Today, day 16,007, I think back on all those wasted days. I literally wasted thousands of days. I gave them away. Took no thought to the days I’d been given. Never thought there might only be 16,008. Steve Jobs counted his days. Many heroes that died young counted their days. They knew they had limited days to accomplish much. I’ve been given many days and accomplished little. Not any longer.

How many days have you lived? How many days do you have left to live? Who know? I don’t know my number. Nobody knows the exact number. Quite frankly, I’m glad I don’t know that number.  I’m now planning my life with a specific number in my mind.  I have 20,000 more days. Plenty of days left to accomplish great things. That’s more days than I’ve lived so far. If everything goes according to plan. But there is a plan. There was nothing before. So nothing got accomplished.

Here’s the greatest thing. Even if I live only 365 more days I will have accomplished more than my first 16,007 days on earth. I hope you have not had to live thousands of wasted days to figure this out like I did and start numbering them. But I guarantee you this – whenever that last day comes and you haven’t been numbering them, you will wish you had one more day.

Randy Teegarden

President & CEO

Midway Transformation Inc

A Human Potential and Performance Consulting Company

http://www.midwaytransformation.com

 

A word that will haunt you. Forever.

Once you start watching, you must watch this to the very end.

I simply could not make the case any better or more passionately.

You will love the challenge of this speech by Larry Smith, a professor of economics at the University of Waterloo in Canada.

Think different,

Randy

Randy Teegarden is President & CEO of Midway Transformation Inc

MTI is a personal and professional performance coaching company.

http://www.midwaytransformation.com

 

The Mayan Calendar Will Be Right (someday)

A Different Destination

The Mayan Calendar Will Be Right (someday)

December 21, 2012. Or maybe it’s December 23, 2012. They go back and forth on the exact date. Regardless, don’t make any plans for either date. Say goodbye to friends and loved ones. Think about closing out bank accounts and heading to the temples in the mountains. Life as we now know it, live it and sometimes love it is almost over. In one day, our poles will drastically switch (geomagnetic reversal) and massive destruction will prevail. Or the distant planet Nibiru will crash into us sending us flying off the planet and into space.  Evil is gathering in the corners of the earth even now to unleash upon us unimaginable horrors. (Or aliens – like in Independence Day.)

Reading the legends of the Mayan Calendar is creepy. People really really really believe this. Some people swear that we have only days before something happens that rips mankind apart. Enter the Age of the Walking Dead. Man has always been fascinated with an apocalyptic end of the world. (If you want to see how fixated we’ve always been about cataclysmic events check out this partial chart: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events  )

But one day of course, life will end. Some day. If not December 21^st then maybe the 23^rd. Or maybe April 15^th 2069. (My 100^th birthday.) Thousands of years from now whatever represents life on earth will have to prepare for the inevitable. A dying sun. Or carbon monoxide levels dropping. Or an asteroid impact. Something will trigger the end. Hopefully, innovation, technology and human persistence (unless we are all zombies or androids) will allow us to deliver a solution before we lose heat, gravity, oxygen, life. While there is a part of us that is forever – your soul – most everything else that is tangible is not.

Your life is set upon a Mayan Calendar. Your life will one day return to the ideas that gave it birth. Your life may be like a shooting star – short but brilliant. Marilyn Monroe and Steve Jobs.  John Belushi,  John Candy and Chris Farley. Or your life may be longer – who knows? Your Mayan Calendar knows. But it is really difficult to get a solid prediction from it. You never know the exact date and the  exact time. Even if your doctor says you have an incurable disease and you only have 3 to 5 months to live you won’t know the exact date of your departure. You’ll just know that the calendar has a date that is sooner than the date you would have picked.

All life does eventually go out of existence. It does end. You have a time and a date that will click “finished” on the Mayan Calendar of your life.  You have at least three ways you can handle this somewhat sobering fact. One way is to worry about it constantly. Do nothing positive. Make sure that no matter how much (or little) time is left on your calendar you will not be productive. Another way is to get angry that life is so stinky short and do everything that you can possibly do to please yourself. Screw everybody else around you – live for each moment and get as far up the ladder of success and wealth as possible. The third way is the path of every great prophet and teacher. And parent. Realize that time is made for man and short. Enjoy little things each day. Invest in people and create something that will live on and on long after you are gone. Your calendar is ticking. Choose a path that makes you live forever.

It’s the path with a different destination.

Randy Teegarden

Randy Teegarden is President & CEO of Midway Transformation Inc

MTI is a personal and professional performance coaching company.

http://www.midwaytransformation.com