“To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.” – Winston Churchill Last night, I had the strangest of dreams. I was walking in a neighborhood with houses on both sides, snow was pouring down and everything was completely whited out. Then, out of nowhere, a massive snake that must have been twenty feet long and foot thick started chasing me. I ran. It was destroying everything behind me. Getting closer and closer ready to devour me.…
a man chasing dreams
Posts by thebettermanprojects
Through the greatest of sacrifices we open the gates of possibility – witness a version of ourselves greater than we are now – and begin to embody the true essence of our spirit. We become who we are meant to be. And for the first time in our lives, the images of who we thought we were begin to shatter and disappear back into the ether. For thousands of days, I have sat down at my desk to transcribe the whispers of my soul. When I found the courage, I would write about the great tragedies and victories of my life, express my dreams and try my best to come to an understanding of how lost I felt at times. What came out was…
It took me a long to to get to the place where I could do this. It took me thousands of failures, a rollercoaster of up and down moments, many false starts and an equal amount of recommitments. But I’m finally doing it. I’m finally locked in. I don’t know if this is the way it is for everybody, but I find the first week of starting a new journey particularly difficult. It’s like the mind has so much momentum of living in the past ways of being that when you try to start heading in a different direction, there’s this undertow that tries to rip you back. But once you get through that phase, and for me it’s usually about one week, it…
What’s Coming Will Come And We’ll Meet It When It Does
thebettermanprojects
Posted on February 14, 2020
Courage to me was never about feeling completely fearless. It’s always been about looking my fears dead in the face and continuing forward no matter what. I have lost countless times on this journey. The tally marks are well stacked up in the losing column and would probably be overwhelming to look at if I tried. But I have had some wins. Big ones. And, in life’s mysterious ways, some moments that were actually supposed to be wins turned out to be crushing losses. Those are a bit harder to stomach. But when I look at all of it in total, I am reminded of my favorite speech my Theodore Roosevelt once again. I would rather be defeated endlessly than to give up trying…
Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. – T.S. Eliot Everything in my heart tells me I can do this. Everything. I’m not going to spend my time here writing about what I think will happen – that’s reserved for the journey ahead. But what I will do is write about what this means to me and the messages I’ve been receiving for some time now. Whenever fear is present, especially when it comes to walking upon untraveled paths, there’s something special that’s about to happen. Sometimes that fear gets the best of us and we stall or take a step back. But the funny thing is, no matter how long you’ve prevented yourself…
Every once in a while you come across a moment that you know will change your life. The other night, I had one of the most vivid dreams I’ve had in a very long time. I was standing in the house of one of my close friends, and saw this version of me – a different version – that was quite striking. I saw flashes of what I looked like when I was young, a message that kept echoing “the clock turns back” and this version of me – the same age as I am right now – but more in alignment with what I looked like when I was very little. I woke up perplexed. It was like I had experienced something happening…
metanoia(n.) the journey of changing one’s mind, heart, self, or way of life. I’ve always loved that word and what it stands for. More than any other word, it is the complete embodiment of my entire purpose of writing and why I started this project. I’m doing my best to change my mind, heart, self and way of life. All of them. The other day I came across a quote that read, “It ran into your family until it ran into you. You’ve been anointed to break the cycle. Generational curses end with you.” Throughout the past year or so, I’ve had some difficulty stepping up to the plate and answering that call. To be honest, it can seem daunting at times. I also…
Fear plays a very interesting role in our lives. In many ways, fear can be a crippling experience that effectively pushes the pause button on our progress forward. It can easily cause you to pull of the road for extended periods of time and freeze not being able to continue on the path forward. However, fear also serves the function of letting us know that we are about to move past our initial limitations. It signals growth to come. It signals opportunity. I have been struck by fear many times and left paralyzed in the clutches of its teeth unable to make movement forward despite knowing deep within that I can. Recently, after years of being trapped, I finally made movement forward through that…
This moment means a lot to me. Let me explain. For many years, I followed the advice I was being given with promises of grand outcomes. However, these dreams never came to fruition no matter how much I relentlessly went after them. As you can imagine, that takes quit the toll on the soul. That makes you want to quit. As time went on, there was this intuitive pull that I had to let go of what I knew in order to become who I was meant to be. That’s when the answers started to show up. They were very, very different than anything I’ve ever heard. They had significant amounts of depth, made so much sense to me and felt like I finally…
Out of the many things my dad has taught me, the life lessons that go along with learning how to fish have been some of the most memorable. Ever since my first catch in Colorado at 3 years old wearing green dinosaur pajamas, I guess you can say that I’ve been hooked. For years, we have stood on the rocks of rivers together reading water, getting a feel for where fish were, celebrating when a “big one” was on the line, occasionally falling into the river and camping out under the stars amongst the trees. Here’s some of the little nuggets of wisdom he’s passed down to me. Be patient. All good things come in time. You may not catch something for hours on…
