Life Goes On - Don't Forget

I may not succeed, I may not win but I will remember.

You know when I remember the art of rhetoric, convincing people (the art of persuasiveness as it is properly defined - also being a manipulative *****), and I sit in my house in Tokyo (imagine that, eh?), I can't help but think that once upon a time I was lost in a world that i knew well. Well the good news is I have fought my way across 37 states, 21 (and counting) countries, and I have found so many different dreams that I can't seem to just pick one into it's own existence! But being on the other side of the world doesn't help very much, considering that my use of the language may be fluent but not native. Did you know that in the past 6 months I managed to net over 2 grand? Take money off my debt? In a country that some people "wouldn't last a day"?

Two days ago I chose to be honest yet again. Everyone that knows me understands and comes to grip with the fact that I have honest intentions. God if you could just imagine how many people I love, how many people I believe in, how much I want people to succeed. At Gaba I managed to find people who could find their own future taking chances, finding dreams, finding time to not be "normal", and it's truly been my honor to give up a piece of my soul as a gift to their own. I, regretfully, define love as something that is when I can exist as a different person thanks to someone else's, however potentially brief, input into my own life. As the "sap" that could probably grow a damn tree I love quite a number of people! And I'm proud of that! I have been a star in so many ways. "If I hadn't have taken your advice" or "Without you" is basically the tenets of my life that I realize I don't regret for a moment!

One day when we take a deep breath we realize that we have forgotten more important things than we have actually remembered at work. I think that when people set an ideal, set a dream, set the strategy for a match, they realize that what they are doing is creating a business, creating a dream of their own goals and something that other people may one day aspire to be in their own setting, own self? I thought of establishing a business called "Fruit First" where i would sell both cupcakes and amazing ripe, locally grown fruits, and try to focus on America being actually Healthy for the Soul. Which I teach more often than not. And you know what's funny? I think it is great idea! I mean of course it is my own so I am a tiny sliver biased, but what do you think? Success in the making? It'd be good, right? Eat a piece of fruit, eat something good! And regretfully it's a good idea that inspired by my own mother that I've had such a love hate relationship for years with.

I had a dream last night that I was back at home, existing in a place that I didn't know what I was doing, in a place where I was thinking of the things that could happen without being the impetus for some new beginning. I've realized that I will always forget things that don't drive me forward, because when it comes down to it that if it doesn't matter in 5 years then why the hell to we care? Why do we care when it won't matter in 2 years? Maybe in a day? Why do we stress to give ourselves hell when we can exist in happiness and in a place where our future is an actual possibility? Why? Because most of the time we end up like the idiots society wants us to be. Because we are not destined for small things, we are destined for change, however small. We are destined to exist as a person that has seen more than not, to travel, to believe, to help, to educate, and to end up in debt either way. Because that's the god Honest truth. Note the capitalization.

Regardless, have a nice day!

~mike w

200 Days (and a few earthquakes) Later

I'm a dreamer. 

When I close my eyes I see color. I see all the people that have made my moments of joy possible, I see the places I've been to even if for only a moment, and I see the times where I almost lost my grip on any sort of sensibility because I held my expectations too...well my standards were honesty, integrity, and caring. Those are tough to meet at times.

Yesterday I was running on 2 hours of sleep, lugging my way through Tokyo walking on an endless labyrinth of bridges in the haze of the afternoon sun and smog and wondering "what in the hell am I doing". I think that since I've moved here I've asked that question more times than I ever had, and as the ever evil existentialist (especially if I've had tequila) most people know I think about those things a lot. As I was walking by a small construction site, a construction guard worked up the courage to say "have a nice day" in English to me without any prompting. I realize that I have my standards for a reason and the smile that has lasted on my face 24 hours is a gift that actually cost him nothing.

I realized yesterday that the word for earthquake and self-confidence are actually the same in Japanese. Now considering this is a country that has been plagued with some of the largest earthquakes in the past five centuries I wonder how the language had evolved in that way. See, here, people only focus on their self worth when it applies to other people - it is literally the culture. The exact opposite of the U.S., eh? And after years of self-degradation, hatred, and some love fitted in between the sheets (metaphor people! metaphor! well partially ;), I realize how similar those words, earthquake and confidence, actually are.\

Courage is the Magic that turns dreams into Reality. Life Rule #1. 

I think it's about time that I have written down what I love about my life, what I dream about tomorrow, and what my goals are for the future. I sort of imagine my life to be like the Grand Canyon, and yes Laura I'm glad you dragged me there for 2 glorious days. Once upon a time it was the same as everything else, just a flat field with a river running through it. After thousands of trials, storms, eroding (not to mention years), it is one of the most stunning places on the planet. Life feels small when you realize that we are just a speck of dust in the wheel of time, but we can make a different. And when we realize that life should only shake when the actual Earth itself moves instead of the mental prisons we commit ourselves to, maybe confidence is a prerequisite for making change.

Have a nice day! 

~M