Let me speak to you a bit about living.
There is a wonderful quote by a wonderful person (the name escapes me at this wonderful moment) that I have grown to love. It goes: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, then go out and do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Beautiful, yeah?
Over the past three years I have routinely come to life. I asked what I needed and the answers came to me with a zeal that can only be found in such random moments as those that have decided my path. From freedom and independence to Guatemala and chicken buses, this life has lead me on some courses that I did not fully understand at first but soon decided I could never hope to live without.
Living is all about experience within a moment. Allowing a moment to carry you away, imbed itself in your memory and change the course of your life.
All too often people see these moments and shy away from them. They appear to be outside of one’s comfort zone. They seem to be too big for a normal guy or gal, too random, too obscure. For reasons too numerous to name, some will say “no” when life places an adventure within their reach. They smile politely and shake their heads, while everything within cries out for a yes.
This is complete folly, for life is made of adventure and the reason for life is to embark on as many as one can fit within their days.
Adventure does not need to be had thousands of miles from home, mind you. Adventure can be had within a moment as well. A recent random meeting, forcefully arranged through peer pressure, will illustrate my point to perfection.
I am completely spontaneous. I will go wherever and do whatever. This is a skill that has brought me much happiness, a bit of pain and more than a million amazing memories. However, even I get tired.
I recently received a phone call from a good friend on just such a tired evening. She was out and about in this fine town of ours and proceeded to begin to practice that oldest form of persuasion shared between friends, that being repetitive questioning, in an attempt to gain my company on this fantastic little evening she was having. She told me of the music, she told me of the Oberon, she told me of the crowd and then she told me of her friend.
“Brooks, you have to come out and meet the female you,” she said to me.
This, of course, stopped me in my tracks. My guard was down and she went for the kill.
“You’ll love her, she’s the one I’ve been telling you about forever,” said she.
Here comes the random moment, that moment when the right words, the right moves and the right decision will bring about an adventure the likes of which you have never known.
We met, this “female me” and I. I took her hand and she took my breath. We screamed at each other (as the music was quite loud) and discovered that, yes, we had a huge amount in common. Before the night was through we had made plans to play within the Sleeping Bear Dunes park, hiking and all that.
We did this. It was amazing. We had a second date, I could not believe it, a third, I was blown away. And thus it has continued.
I have, many times, wandered off by myself on some random Traverse City night. I would inevitably find myself on a beach or pier, gazing at the lights of downtown or the stars high above. I would know in that moment that someday I would find someone to share that amazing scene with, and it appears as though I have. Into my life, because of my “yes,” has arrived someone of whom I have always dreamt.
Saying yes to a random moment is key to life. Life happens within random deviations. Ignoring these will assure one a life full of naught but bore and storyless dinner conversation.
So, today, I write with one purpose, to get you to say yes. Say yes to whatever will make you come alive and you may soon find yourself standing in the pouring rain, holding onto an amazing creature, unable to quit the perma-grin spread across your face or the racing emotion tucked deep within your chest.
