Tag: over the sun

The Core

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Photo courtesy of Nicholas_T

 

In the exercise world, your core is one of the most important areas of the body to strengthen. If your core is strong, much of the rest of your physical wellbeing will follow. As I was reminded of from a coaching client last week, the muscle you build doesn’t just remain that way. It takes continued work to grow. He happens to be going thru rehab on his knee. The physical therapist he uses advised him that during his time of post-surgery recovery, sitting on the couch, he lost muscle. Wow! It was only 30 days or so. By the way, this guy is in great shape. 

How does this apply to the core in your life?

As I’ve advised in writing, and in the flesh, your life’s core is even more vital than what I described above. Your life’s core is made up of some things you’re familiar with. It includes your mind, your spirit, your emotions, your physical, etc. They are your sustainers (as I like to call them) and they are the measure of who you Really are. Sorry, if you were thinking being the CEO of the next WhatsApp would be the difference maker. Kinda ironic in an age where many aspire and pursue that. The truth is found in something(s) not seen.

What happened to our core strength?

Outward signs of success are sweetly seductive. They whisper, they sigh, they touch, and above all they promise. All this to lure you into a net very difficult to escape. My friends, most don’t escape. It’s too risky to escape. To be left with a life like:

  • Outward and inward struggles to regain a life left in the wardrobe
  • Failing, again and again
  • Loneliness
  • Awakening to see real worth
  • Finding out who really is for you
  • Seeing people through the lens of love
  • Life over the sun

Isn’t it interesting how those first few bullets, daunting as they are, lead to what we’ve dreamed of? My experience shows you can’t have the last 4, without the first 3. That’s the difference.

I won’t give you some list of all the things necessary to strengthen your life’s core. You need to figure that out for yourself. You can seek counsel from me or someone else, but you’re the one calling the shots That’s the only way it will be authentic. I can give you one secret, though:

Start paying attention and do what you know you need to do.

The Longing for More

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I wrote a post a few weeks back and it reflects a significant shift for me. I have a clarity that, quite frankly, has eluded me for some time. Much that hasn’t made sense, does in the current frame. I feel an elation and clarity  that’s pitch perfect.

Take a look at the following lyrics to a familiar song:

Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high there’s a land I heard of once in a lullaby
Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true

Someday I’ll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where troubles melt like lemon drops
Away above the chimney tops
That’s where you’ll find me Somewhere over the rainbow
Bluebirds fly
Birds fly over the rainbow
Why then oh why can’t I?

If happy little bluebirds fly
Beyond the rainbow why oh why can’t I?

Those lyrics used to confound me. I now get what the lyricist was trying to communicate. Obviously, I can’t know for sure, so leave me a little latitude. The lyrics communicate the longing, found in most people I know and have met. Some would say it’s a longing felt by the majority of people around the globe. A longing to know and believe that there is something more to life than what we find in the daily living under the sun.

There was a time many years ago where I was arrogant enough to believe that I could speak to certain areas of life without having the experience. I relied on my head and book knowledge to make my conclusions. I discovered the heart doesn’t really make a true appearance until it is broken. My broken heart, in the area of meaning, loss, empathy, and much more, brought a level of understanding that only those experiences could produce. Now I know about the longing.

I am humbled.

I see modern men and women pursuing much on this planet and inside of them is eternity. Some are drawn and some feel driven mad. Either way, there is something more, there is epic living. I’ve spent more than 7 years living what was appointed for me. My appointments were out in front. for a purpose. Maybe not unlike Lewis and Clark, who prepared a way.

I expect in the coming days, weeks and months to introduce tangible experiences for you and I to engage in a deeper way. We’ll start slow, experiment a little and find some openings to live over the sun.

5 Reasons to Be Creative

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I overheard a conversation with an adult family member yesterday. He was lamenting the sad reality of a creative’s existence. You’ve probably heard it before:

“They’re starving, and all artists starve.”

Funny how those who complain about the creative’s plight, often are big admirers of art (life, parenting, music, painting, cinema, etc.). So what gives? Is it really about starving and doing without? Is it really a dance with insanity to do what only seems to make sense to you?

As someone who tried to close and lock the door to my creative wiring, the wiring never goes away. I finally accepted it and learned to celebrate it. That was a crucial awakening.

For those who say retirement, promotions and prestige are the keys to a fulfilling life, that game is already been called.

Here are my 5 reasons to be creative:

  1. The age of the doer is over. Just like many types of change, an age ends before the mass knows and feels it.
  2. You were created to be creative. Not everyone will be a Miles Davis or Daniel Day-Lewis, but everyone has it in them if they are courageous enough to act on it.
  3. Our collective wellbeing is calling out for this-desperately.
  4. The status quo won’t seem so appealing.
  5. Living over the sun will make a lot more sense.

What are some of your reasons for being creative?

Over the Sun

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“Consider for example, and thou wilt find that almost all of the transactions in the time of Vespasian differed little from those of the present day. Thou there findest marrying and giving in marriage, educating children, sickness, death, war, joyous holidays, traffic, agriculture, flatterers, insolent pride, suspicions, laying of plots, longing for the death of others, newsmongers, lovers, misers, men canvassing for the consulship and for the kingdom;—yet all these passed away, and are nowhere.” – Marcus Aurrelius

I’ve spent a good deal of my life operating under the sun, sometimes even exclusively. Can you relate? The pursuit of things that you think have never been pursued before. When I was thirty-five I believed I ruled the world. I thought I was breaking new ground. The truth was others had been there before me, and there were younger men who were waiting to take my place. It wasn’t until I made my daily focus about living over the sun that true living began. I don’t consider what happened before to be a waste. It was learning and it didn’t happen overnight.

The quote from Marcus Aurellius was written somewhere around 170 AD. Interestingly, many of us are still trying to prove him wrong. See Sheryl Sandberg, Jeff Bezos, Sir Richard Branson, Will Smith, and the list goes on. My post is not an indictment of those people or their human achievement. My post is really about achievement, but with a different motivation. It’s the motivation of living over the sun.

I have been greatly influenced by Solomon and the biblical accounts of his life. Most specifically, the accounts found in the Book of Ecclesiastes. You can read his journal there for yourself. On some quiet nights I am haunted by his words found there. Solomon had more and tried more than most men ever will, including the vaunted list above. Yet we (mankind) press on, and on. We’re a culture that believes in the exception. The arrogance that somehow sees itself above history. Solomon was right when he said:

“God has placed in the heart of men, eternity.”

That is what I’m trying to convey here; the idea of eternity, the idea of over the sun. Over the sun takes you to a place where what you do matters here and in eternity. Eternity is in heaven and it is on earth. Eternity will record my apology to my son today. It will go into his future and the future being recorded for my ears ahead. In short, what I do matters. Now, before we get too sentimental, eternity will also record all of my stressing over what I have no control over. Gulp. Fortunately, there is a cross powerful enough to deal with my good, my bad and my ugly.

The following are some reasons why you and I should operate over the sun, along with some reasons why we shouldn’t operate under it. Keep in mind this is about your thinking and your actions. It’s worth considering, even if my words make me a madman in your book.

  • Operating over the sun puts other people first. This is a sweet reality for mankind. I hear a beautiful melody in my ear and head as I write this. Putting people first always results in something that lasts forever.
  • Operating under the sun is all about you. Your career, your money, who you can manipulate, who you can control, and all the other agendas a lifetime can hold.
  • Operating over the sun is where we find sustainable happiness. The actions are those rooted in the simple and the beautiful. It’s a place of where you are surprised by what each day brings, and you don’t mind it, happy or sad.
  • Operating under the sun is about deceit. The implication here is self-deceit. Under the sun we convince ourselves that one more drink, one more deal, or one more relationship will satisfy. And as Marcus and Solomon found, it won’t deliver the promised outcome.
  • Operating over the sun is where we find the personhood of God.