For 2012, I wish you perspective.

Perspective is something that I’ve learned a great deal about this year. It is amazing how two people can see, hear, taste, or experience the same thing and still have a different perspective. The fact is, we are all human and allowed our own experience and perspective, it is our right to do so (at least in this country). We have the freedom to experience life our own way, and we even get to chose how we want to experience it.

For me, 2011 was about facing new chapters of both life and death. There were multiple times that a new part of my life opened up, and I needed a new perspective (for example, I started two businesses this year). Many people helped me see that “even though ‘new’ could be scary, it didn’t have to be bad.” And, I am grateful for learning to cultivate a positive perspective. As well, I saw the threat of death first-hand on multiple occasions…and your perspective on life changes in that moment…when you know life could be gone tomorrow. Again, several people helped me see that difficult experiences can change you forever in a moment…and for the better. I am also grateful for this perspective. We all go through good and bad times…every human gets hit with joys and sorrows, pleasures and pains, times of celebration and mourning…we all share this in life…and we all get to choose how we perceive our life.

Sometimes we sit in traffic, go out with friends, work at our jobs, play with our kids, spend time with family, and we complain! Or, we are hurt, we are inconvenienced, we are in pain, we don’t like what happened to us, and we have a negative perspective about life’s experience. In the big picture, even most negative life experiences are not that big of a deal. Any one of us could be gone tomorrow…and…one day…every one of us will be gone. When you compare what you are negative or complaining about to death…most things stop being a big deal. Hmmm, funny how that is.

So, I do not wish you a perspective that includes “normal habits of complaining” or a perspective of negative energy – this is the perspective of an “ordinary life.” What I wish for you is an EXTRA-ordinary life…a life where you VALUE every single thing that you have, every friend that you make, every breath that you take, every good experience, AND every BAD experience. This is a perspective of extreme personal power – when you see every aspect of life as a gift that you get to experience. This is my wish for you, that you make this type of perspective a part of your daily way of living.

There really is nothing like the perspective of appreciating every single thing that happens to you in life. For the majority of this year, I did an experiment called “365 Days of Thankfulness” where I posted daily (or tried to ;- ) about things I am thankful for. The amount energy, positive energy, and joy that comes from a practice like this is absolutely profound, and I encourage anyone to post to this 365 page on a daily basis (or start your own). It is not easy to do this on a daily basis…but one of the coolest things is that you start to run out of “big things” to be thankful for…and you start to give thanks for smaller things…and this is when the magic happens!

Happy 2012 New Year’s Everyone – I hope your perspective on 2012 is amazing!

With Love, Light, and Peace to You!

Adam

It’s been a few weeks since the new year started, and I wanted to wish everyone who reads this a Happy 2010.  In particular, I am very grateful for all my family, friends, coaches, and colleagues…and wish them a great 2010.  For the past 5 or 6 years, I’ve written something like this in my blog on New Years Day (though, the old blog is currently on hiatus).  While I wanted to write this on New Year’s day and thought about it long before and since, I didn’t have a full sense of what to say…until last night…so, here it is:

As many others experienced, 2009 was probably the craziest year in my life…it was both terrible and super.

It was terrible to face a relatively short period of very deep depression in the latter part of the year.  While provoked somewhat by being downsized, I found that really wasn’t the root cause of my depression…at the time, I didn’t really know what was causing me to feel so awful.  It was surprising to find out so many people faced depression in 2009.  For anyone that has been through a clinical depression, you know it’s not fun.  If you have NOT been through it, a) imagine something you have strongly and emotionally dreaded doing, b) multiply that feeling by 100, and c) have it on your mind 24×7 whereby it drowns out most other thoughts.  This should give you a decent picture of how it feels.  The part that I never expected was that it’s not easy to shake “the feelings” without a hell of a lot of work to retrain your brain…in fact, some of the training involves physical changes to the brain…very much like training muscles.

What is super about 2009 is that I learned some tremendous lessons about life…and the journey we are all on:

1. It may sound funny, but my relationship with myself was without compassion.  In fact, I was beating myself up about certain things for about 20 years…I didn’t realize I was even doing it…and I also didn’t know it was making me miserable!!!  What I found out is that something can be making you very unhappy, and you aren’t even aware it is happening.

2. While it was already good, my perspective on interpersonal relationships drastically changed.  All along the way in 2009…before, moving into, being in, and getting out of depression…various people in my life showed that they cared about me in amazing ways, small and large, deserved or not.  Their care was given out of kindness, compassion, love, and good will.  It cost them very little to give the encouragement, kind words, or thoughts, and it was worth a tremendous amount to me.  People and relationships are quite amazing if you stop and truly observe, embrace the relationship, let the relationship evolve…don’t hide or put it off…don’t rebel against it…pay attention to it…get closer…give it respect.  What I discovered is that relationships often have unexpected value…experiencing human relationships and interactions…these are like finding precious stones on the street…you have no idea how valuable they might be when you first see them.

In experiencing both terrible and super perspectives, I left 2009 with some clarity and insight about personal growth from human relationships…that I wish for you in 2010:

1. I wish you a new sense of the relationship you have with yourself…that you can be patient, supportive, and fair to yourself…that you know what you need and you give yourself what you need.  This sounds funny, and I didn’t know what this meant until the end of 2009…but it actually was life-altering.  Since it is ambiguous, I’ll also offer a related wish (something more concrete), I wish that:  you can see your life’s purpose to be the best “you” that you can be, to feel a sense of worth from serving your fellow human in whatever you do, and you discover that joy is everywhere you look if you let yourself see it.  These are hard to do daily or build a discipline to keep in mind all the time…but these were amazingly powerful things I learned and wish for you in 2010.

2. I wish you a new sense of deepening relationships with others.  We all are human…we all have flaws, issues, failures, and imperfections…we all have so much in common…we share the air we breathe, we have a brain that generates thoughts and feelings constantly and with little pause, and we experience thousands of interactions with other people during our lives.  What I wish for you is…to know you make a difference to others every day.  I wish you truly and completely experience making a difference to another person just in the tone of your voice or by saying “hello” to a stranger.  I wish you interact with someone this year…in a way that ultimately leads you to have a huge  impact on their life 10 years from now…and I wish you live this year knowing that it could be anyone you come in contact with (pause and think about that).  In 2009, people I met 28 years ago had a huge impact on  my life…people I met 12 years ago, 6 years ago, 3 years ago, and even one year ago…all had a big impact on me in 2009…I didn’t know this would be the case when I met them or interacted with them over time.  In looking at life this way, it creates a new view of how important relationships are, how they have completely unanticipated impact, and how people value each other.  I wish this perspective for you in 2010…that your relationships with others grow deeper.

These experiences were blessings for me in 2009…and I wish them for you in 2010.

Happy 2010!

With Love and Gratitude,
Adam