<\/p>\n
Is it possible to make significant change without having experienced difficult circumstances? Absolutely. But, as most of us know from our own experiences, we tend to not shake things up too much when things are going \u2018okay.\u2019 <\/span><\/p>\n We may not love everything about our lives, but things aren\u2019t so bad that we feel a strong desire to act. That fire just isn\u2019t there, and we kind of just plod along.<\/span><\/p>\n Have you ever noticed the most inspiring people, the people who have done the most amazing things in life, seem to share a common thread of overcoming some sort of adversity? Many times, it is things so horrible we can\u2019t imagine how they were able to move past these situations and create the life they did.<\/span><\/p>\n The life I have now is nothing I would have imagined I would have many years ago. Like anyone, there were things I didn\u2019t like; I had certain things I wanted, but didn\u2019t give any serious thought to actually trying to bring them into my experience. I kind of had that ‘wouldn’t it be nice’ mentality, but never really thought it was possible to do more than I had been doing. But, as my interest in personal development deepened, I actually made conscious effort to be different and change my life, and things certainly progressed. But, when looking back on everything that has happened, the biggest catalysts without a shadow of a doubt, were the \u2018bad\u2019 times. Would I have ended up in the same place had these things not happened? I suppose, but I\u2019ll never know.<\/span><\/p>\n What I do know is, we don\u2019t have to let our troubles consume us, and dictate the course of our lives. They provide us with amazing opportunities to create something better than we ever thought we could.<\/span><\/p>\n We just have to make the firm decision that this will be so, that we will not let these problems bring us down a self-destructive path, or lead us further away from who we want to be and what we want.<\/span><\/p>\n We have to be willing to take personal responsibility for our lives, and acknowledge we have a choice on how to proceed. We must commit to being better, and make that worthy mission a priority.<\/span><\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t mean we can never have our moments of feeling panic , self-pity, fear, doubt, sadness, a sense of unfairness or \u2018why me.\u2019 We are only human after all. What it does mean , however, is we must be willing to work through these feelings, and keep them from overwhelming us. We must be willing to see how they can serve us, and be used as a springboard into something better.<\/span><\/p>\n I remember shortly after returning from a stint teaching English in Japan, I was ready for a different life. I got a standard office job when I returned to the US, but by the second month, the travel wheels were already turning. I met Ryan around that time, and that totally changed my whole world.<\/span><\/p>\n I quit that job after a few months, and took a two-month trip around Europe. I saw that as the first chapter of my new life. I returned home ready to conquer the world , even though I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do. But, I felt good, and I knew this was the start of something.<\/span><\/p>\n A couple of days after I got home, my father told me he had been diagnosed with lung cancer\u2014he made it sound like it was just this one little tumor in his lung, and I didn\u2019t learn the truth until I went with him to his first chemotherapy session.<\/span><\/p>\n I mentioned something to the doctor about surgery, and he noted surgery wasn\u2019t an option for stage 4 lung cancer. While I had been devastated upon hearing the news from my father, hearing this was like being punched in the stomach with an anvil\u2014not only did he have cancer, he had terminal <\/em>cancer.<\/span><\/p>\n Within eight months, he was gone, and that period was one of the worst of my life. Everyday I was riddled with anxiety and fear; sometimes I would cry so hard I couldn\u2019t breathe, and I was essentially having panic attacks.<\/span><\/p>\n When he finally died, there was this odd sense of peace\u2014there was no more uncertainty about what was going to happen, and the pain that came from watching him suffer was now gone. <\/span><\/p>\n I experienced one of the things we fear most in this world, and I had made it through. The grief was not intense at first, but it gained momentum. I still couldn\u2019t believe all that had happened, and I slowly started processing everything.<\/span><\/p>\n Getting such devastating news when I was so ready for \u2018greatness\u2019 made it all the harder to deal with. The life I thought I would create for myself would never be—I had this idea of becoming this perfect person with this perfect existence and this could never happen now that I had been touched by such a horrible thing. That was a hard pill to swallow.<\/span><\/p>\n But, as horrible as this time was, it was also a time of tremendous<\/em> growth. One of the most important things we need to do to make our lives truly better is face all of our \u2018shit.\u2019 And, we go to great lengths to avoid doing this; it just festers and affects us in countless ways.<\/span><\/p>\n But, the grief I felt in this situation forced me into this dark hole where all the other ‘stuff’ was lurking,\u00a0 and it just came rushing through the floodgates. Rather than flee, I stuck around, and I\u2019m glad I did.<\/span><\/p>\n It was extremely uncomfortable, but as time went on, I felt lighter\u2014by no means did I totally release everything, but something within changed dramatically. For the first time in my life, I gave serious thought to what I wanted and who I wanted to be. For the first time in my life, I decided to take specific action, rather than just being a spectator of my own life.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span><\/p>\nMy Father Dying<\/span><\/h2>\n
Losing My Income Suddenly<\/span><\/h2>\n