The Realest Sh!t I’ll ever write

Most people would look at me and think I’m one lucky S.O.B and they’re right. In fact, sometimes I expect people to #TeddyKGB me when I elude to challenges or problems in my life.

To give you some context, I’m a white male in America. I grew up in the safe California suburbs with good schools and great sports programs. I grew up with my homeboy Jesus in church. I never worried about food or clothing. My parents have been married for over 40 years. My blessing list is very long.

In fact, blessings have come so often that receiving them has become normal. And my responses to these blessings have also become disproportionately normal.

The only time normal is good is when your doctor is giving you test results. The rest of the time, normal is average. Normal is taking the easy road. Normal is ordinary. And the longer my response to blessings stays ordinary, the longer I stay trapped with an ordinary life.

This is not being unappreciative, it’s the opposite actually. This is me realizing that someday I will be asked what I actually did with all that I was given. I think that’s a huge step toward ACTUALLY, REALLY appreciating blessings and moving on from being an average person in life. And I’m ready to own how average I’ve been, because I know I can do so much more to give and help others.

Deep down, I know this is the true path to happiness. It’s almost like little dog computer scientist man lives in my subconscious brain, watches my life through a live feed on his cpu and determines the amount of happiness to output based on how much I help others. Yes he has his hands in his pockets.

So the real question becomes, how will I do this. My current answer is I don’t really know all the specifics. But I do know one thing, that if I consider one of the worst case scenarios that could happen, and I was laying on my death bed and had 60 seconds to give video advice to my two babies, I sure as hell know what I’d say:

Going back to receiving and responding to blessings, the easy thing to do is to hoard them like most others do. In my book, the hard thing would be to receive them, really appreciate how awesome they are, and then give them away.

So that’s my new plan. Game on. Goodbye easy road. Goodbye normal. Hello me.