It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for,
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love, for your dreams,
for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon.
I want to know if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow,
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain,
mine or your own, without moving to hide it
or fade it or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy mine or your own.
if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy
fill you to the tips of your fingers
and toes without cautioning us
to be careful, be realistic,
remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty every day,
and if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine,
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,“Yes.”
It doesn’t interest me to know where you live,
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair,
weary and bruised to the bone,
and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me where or what
or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you from the inside
when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself,
and if you truly like the company
you keepin the empty moments.
You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period this time around.
You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a fulltime informal school called life. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.
There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and error, experimentation. The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately “works.”
A lesson is repeated until learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.
Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive there are lessons to be learned.
“There” is no better than “here.” When your “there” has become a “here” you will simply obtain another “there” that will again look better than “here.”
Others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
Your answers lie inside you. The answer to life’s questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.
This will often be forgotten, only to be remembered again.
It tends to judge each one of us by the jobs we hold.
We are today critiqued by the titles on our business cards.
Well I’d like to make one thing clear… I AM NOT MY JOB!!!
I am a human being with many other aspirations, ideals, passions and values.
Please do not think that my most important quality is is that I am a vice president, a manager, a director, an assistant or an intern.
I am not bound to the constraints of my livelihood.
I am more than just a janitor, a cashier, a salesman, a secretary, an architect, a teacher, a journalist, an actor, a marketer, a waiter, a writer or any other caption you may tag me as.
My value is not in my job.
My value is not my job.
My value is in my heart and in my mind.
I’d love to share it with you, if you could look beyond my business card.
If you haven’t already, please do yourself a favor and see the movie “Yes Man” with Jim Carey. It quickly became one of my favorite movies of all time for it’s amazingly inspiring story, great cast and a very humorous script.
For those of you who haven’t seen it, a quick recap is that the main character makes a promise to himself and everyone, that he will say “YES” to anything and everything that comes his way. What started out as a complete disaster slowly turned into blessings-in-disguise as the detours he took, from saying “YES” to everyone, leads him to better things he would have never expected, had he said no.
I’ve always seen myself as a Yes Man and was really able to relate to this story. I say yes to almost anything that’s thrown at me. I love trying anything at least once.
This philosophy I apply to my life has taken me into some really funny situations (I post these stories on www.MotivatedMonkey.com ) and some really inspiring and life changing ones as well (posted here on www.VinceGolangco.com).
I just thought of this movie as today as I said yes to a friend who invited me to try Poi Dancing. I actually didn’t even know what Poi Dancing is but said “Yes” nevertheless.
It turns out, that Poi Dancing is the cool dance with the fire nun-chucks that you will usually see at night on beaches.
It was so much fun and a great work-out as well. It’s a lot trickier than you may think. In fact, the group teaching us made it look REALLY easy… but we were fumbling around with the basic moves. Apparently, the trick to learning this is just practice… I could imagine missing out on this fun day had I said “no” to my invite from my friend….
So even when you say “no”…. make it mean “YES!” You’ll never know what crazy adventure you may be missing out on…
“Excuses are like assholes, we all have one, and they all stink!”
“I’m too weak
Too slow
Too big
I ate too much for breakfast
Got a headache
It’s rainin’
My dog is sick
I can’t right now
I’m not inspired
Makes me smell bad
I’m allergic to stuff
I’m fat
I’m thin
It’s too hot
I’m not right
I’ve got shin splints
Headache
I’m distracted
I’m exerting myself too much
I’d love to really but I can’t
Just can’t
My favorite show is on
I got a case of the Mondays
The Tuesdays
The Wednesdays
I don’t wanna do this
I want to do something else
After new years
Next week
Might make a mistake
I got homework
I feel bloated
I have gas
I got a hot date
My coach hates me
My mom won’t let me
I bruise easily
It’s too dark
It’s too cold
My blisters hurt
This is dangerous
Ughhhh
Sorry, I don’t have a bike
I didn’t get enough sleep
My tummy hurts
It’s not in my genes
I don’t want to look all tired now
I need a better coach
I don’t like getting tackled
I have a stomach ache
I’m not the athletic type
I don’t want to get sweaty
I have better things to do
I don’t wanna slow you down
Do I have to do this?
Soon as I get a promotion
I think I’ll sit this one out
AND MY FEET HURT!”
– Says Mike ‘Warhawk’ Scott as he slams two basketballs on the ground simultaneouslyrevealing his prosthetic legs. Scott is a wheelchair basketball player, a NWBA star, a national champion, a tournament MVP and is currently playing for the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing. He was born with spina bifida.
And he doesn’t make excuses.
Now that we’ve stopped procrastinating (right?) and figured out what direction we want to head towards, we need to eliminate one vital element in order for us to reach nirvana – Excuses!
“Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses”– George Washington Carver
There are only two things that will happen when you have a task at hand. You either deliver, or you make excuses on why you can’t do it.
“Nothing is impossible; there are ways that lead to everything, and if we had sufficient will, we should always have sufficient means. It is often merely for an excuse that we say things are impossible”– Francois La Rochefoucauld
Kerri Strug did not make excuses when she broke her ankle during her the Olympic Gymnastics competition. The US women were on the verge of an historic win in the team competition in Atlanta. Then the unthinkable happened: Dominique Moceanu, the youngest member of the team, fell on both of her vaults in the last event of the day.
With just a slim lead over the Russian team, it was essential that Kerri Strug, the final American gymnast to perform, nail her vault. But Strug fell too, injuring her ankle in the process. With just one more shot, Strug ignored her injury and ran down for another attempt, sticking her vault before crumpling to the floor in pain.
In doing so, she assured the American team its first Olympic team gold, and instantly became one of the most recognizable faces of the 1996 Games.
“There’s a difference between interest and commitment. When you’re interested in doing something, you do it only when circumstance permit. When you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results”-Art Turock
