Get busy

If you could choose one piece of advice to follow, that consumed most of your beliefs and led you to new directions in your life, what would it be? Is it really that easy? Can one statement represent all that makes us who we are? I highly doubt that you can fit the essence of one's life into a  mouthful of words...or even in words at all.

Through each and every major problem i've encountered, I've pursued the wisdom of those around me to help gain a perspective that i cannot seem to grasp at that moment. I also take things that inspire me and turn them into my own forms of advice.

The one phrase that comes to mind when i think of inspirational quotes was spoken by a man after nineteen years of being imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit. "Get busy living, or get busy dying."

Simple, direct, and true. How many times do the little setback's in life destroy our hope for change. How many times do we allow failure stop us from perusing our dreams, instead of push us towards the direction meant for us the entire time?

So how did the innocent man's journey end? He lived a long happy life on the Pacific Ocean in Mexico after a grand escape that was years in the making. Now life doesn't always grant us "grand escapes" to paradise after we've paid the price of our mistakes for years and years...but why hang on to the things we did not decide for ourselves...the things that take us over and consume the happiness we were meant to have?

In life we must decide to either "get busy living, or get busy dying"...it's time to take the burdens off your sholders and move on...time for doing those things you've always wanted to do. Time to take the time to truly live, to enjoy it all and realize it's at our fingertips.

So get busy...

Wine & Wisdom

Someone once told me, in a not so logical way, that "if you're going to be dumb, you gotta be tough"

I laughed at once and realized the meaning of this phrase pertained to the fact that we were all drinking, heavily might i add, and had work early in the morning. So being dumb was drinking so much at such a late hour, and being tough would mean facing the trek to work early in the morning with a hangover and a permanent nauseous feeling.

After a year and a half of receiving this humorous advice, i realized it relates to many, many things. I, above most anyone, has mastered the art of doing so called "dumb things" and paying for it later. 
Now i never really intentionally get myself into these situations...although i have been known to have fair warning and jump head first despite myself (on more than one occasion), but i consider that more of being an adventure-seeker than being the poster child for stupidity. 
I've always been one to worry about missing out on life's experiences, on the little things that make a person who they truly are. This in turn has lead me down some very treacherous roads...i must say I've experienced a lot and learned things that can only be taught with the lessons given...but at what costs?
This has weighed heavily on my mind recently, and as i sit here sipping my wine and enjoying the soft ambiance of jazz music in the background, i realize that no matter what you regret--you can't change anything. 
Life is what it is...and if you choose to play the game, as most of us do, you have to put your whole heart into it. I certainly know that i have.

I have discovered that no matter what i've lost, no matter how dumb i was, i have to be tough, i have to move on, i have to keep going. If life is a game, then i want to win, not forfeit.
It may not be easy, but the wine helps :)