…present in the moments ahead.
…with this week.
…engaged with this year.
…inhabited in this experience.
Fully be here – right here.
Right now.
We miss the majority of what was meant for our soul’s consumption today when we’re fixated on ‘what’s next’.
In the words of Annie Dillard, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
…from your career is an experience that opens doors to avenues of other experiences. (Not money)
…from your life is an experience with purpose. (Not popularity)
…from your education is an experience with new data, insight, and enlightenment. (Not a 4.0)
Quick – go to the year 2033 in your mind. That’s just 7,300 sunrises away. Now look back at today.
You’re holding a card in your left hand that reads ‘I wish I had’. In your right hand you’re holding a card that reads ‘I’m glad I did’.
Which one are you holding up?
*Note: Experiments birth experiences.
In search of the modern-day dream of its time, Mark Twain headed to Nevada from Missouri with his brother to mine for gold. The year was 1861 and for two weeks the two of them hopped from stage-coach to stage-coach across the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains. Imagine this.
Imagine no air conditioning. Imagine the smell and shake of the stage coaches for days. Imagine no cell phones. Imagine no iPad to occupy your time for 14 plus days of travel to dig, live, and find ‘the dream.’
Now imagine the anticipation. Imagine the stories Twain had heard about others finding gold. It’s safe to assume, the closer he got to the Nevada line, the more robust the anticipation grew. Imagine each stage-coach becoming more and more full with people chasing the same dream. You can almost hear the choir-like chants for gold cant’ you? And remember, there was no Las Vegas at this time to fall back on if he was unable to find gold. It would be another 50 years until the city of Las Vegas would be incorporated. Truly, this was the Wild, undiscovered, West.
Long story short, Twain made it Nevada and dug, and dug, and dug, and dug, and dug, and dug.
No gold.
One of my favorite quotes is from the book of Twain: “The two most important days of your life are the day you were born and the day you figure out why.”
If there’s TiVo in Heaven, I’m hopeful that one day I can see the see the scene when Twain slammed the shovel one last time into the side of a mountain and simultaneously felt and found that it was himself that he was really searching for…not the gold. That was the day and moment he figured out why.
I hope and pray that you’ve had a similar moment.
Happenstance eventually got him to San Francisco, by way of Nevada, and there begins the story of Mark Twain and the man we know as the father of American literature.
We can’t really put our thumbs on what responsibility means can we?
At one point in our lives it means keeping our room clean. At another point it means that we “consistently” go to class. Later it comes to mean that we’re punctual with our appointments and commitments. And then eventually it means we pay our taxes (on time of course).
The problem here is not that this is a bad way to define one’s responsibility. The problem is that it appears to not make the responsible one happy, but make the one whom they’re responsible to happy.
If I kept my room clean, mom and dad were happy. If I went to class, the professor was happy which equaled an ‘A’. If I make it to the meeting on time, my boss is happy so maybe a raise is in the future. If I pay my taxes I can sleep at my house and not at Club Fed. See, if I call you ‘responsible’…chances are you somehow made me happy. Responsibility, as we’ve come to define it, feels more like blackmail doesn’t it?
This isn’t are argument against The Man or a plea for you to only think about you. Yes, be punctual. Yes, pay your taxes. Yes, provide for your family. But let’s call it what it is…being polite, obeying the law, and leadership.
I’m here to argue that in the midst of our timeliness, promptness, straight A’s and clean rooms we’re not responsible enough. Or put it another way, we’ve neglected responsibility in too many non-negotiable areas.
Our responsibility, at its root, is to our dreams. Our responsibility, at the core, is to leave this place different from how we found it. Our responsibility is our music….which is two in one: your gift to the world and your fulfillment.
Only you can write your music and there are few things that take the amount of courage it takes for the responsibility you’ve been given.
Bravery be with us and help us earn the badge of responsibility.
You’re supposed to be you.
You’re supposed to dream the way you dream.
You’re supposed create the way you’re creative.
No cover music.
Just give us you.
That’s only gift you can give us that will reciprocate with the fulfillment you’re after.
Ashton.Gustafson 