I have finally found the courage to write my story…
It is an unfinished story
Poorly written in parts
Marred by clumsy chapters and vile language that does not always speak of my very best character.
As I stand here, slowly walking on my treadmill, typing on my phone, I wonder if this is the very first book ever written by only the human thumb.
I wonder how this book will finish, I wonder how my story will end.
Perhaps you wonder this about your life also.
What will you become?
How long will you live?
What mountains will you climb?
What struggles will you encounter?
What love will you find?
What memories will you create?
I am waxing too lyrical. I am asking too much from you. For surely this is my story, and this is my thumb, ferociously banging away at words that I am just finding on my phone.
I think this is the point, though…
This is why anyone reads a story, for the magnificence of the adventure, for the twists and the turns, for the great discoveries and surprising twists… we read stories and watch movies because we do not know how it ends, and there is a great joy and enthralment in both the wondering and the discovery.
The same is true for your life and mine.
The devil tells you that you have to stay safe, you have to plan, you walk the wide road with the masses… that you need to know how the story ends…
The devil may not exist
You might not believe in his wicked ways
I may have alienated you already by bringing up his name on the very first page
Like I said, my writing is very imperfect
You don’t know me yet, you’ve only just started reading…
But this is my unfinished story, and as you turn the page, you will discover me a little more.
The magic is in the reveal
The story is in my footsteps
And the future is in your hands
What kind of world will you create for yourself and those whom you choose to love?
Because as much as I want to tell my story upon these pages with my furiously typing fast thumb
It is my deepest desire that within these pages…
Upon these words
Written by a very ordinary and often insecure man…
You would find something else
A script. An energy. A model. A way forward.
A pathway to something new.
To the life that you know you were meant to have.
To the adventure that you’ve always longed to live.
To the freedom that can only be found by being you.
This might sound like a bunch of horse shit to you.
You might feel like your dreams fell away into the shadows a gazillion moons ago.
But you still have a shadow
And your dreams still exist.
I know this with absolute certainty.
I don’t care (harsh) how old you are, how young you are, how fat you are, how poor you are, how overwhelmed you are, how rich you are, how tired you are.
You may be terminally ill… we all are.
You might just be waking up to life itself.
None of this matters.
If you have breath now.
If you still have life in your bones.
There is great immeasurable joy to be found in your day.
Right up until the end. This is not the time to give up.
Which brings me back to my story.
Or part of my story.
18 months ago, in Huia, west Auckland, New Zealand, I was on a fishing trip with my then 12-year-old son, when I fell upon a rock.
When I say “fell,” I did not actually fall.
I sat my heavy ass down.
I had walked barely 300 yards across a few small rocks.
When I say “walk,” I mean stumble, red-faced and out of breath.
I couldn’t stand up.
My back hurts.
I had chest pains.
I felt like I was one single footstep away from a coronary and an early demise at 48 years of age.
The ignominy of dying on a rock in the middle of nowhere, with my son, stuck on his own without a soul to help him.
Yes… Something was wrong with my body.
But it was far worse than that.
My body was just a symptom.
There was a greater sickness.
My life was succumbing to the greatest disease of all.
I had become a man without a dream
A human without a goal.
Just another cog in a world of 8 billion people.
Another human being dying on a rock that he did not choose.
Little did I know…
This was a glorious moment.
It was the beginning of something new, something beautiful, the very thing that’s causing me to write these words to you right now.
It was my” fuck no, moment.
Life could not be this way.
I wouldn’t end on this rock.
Everything had to change
My life would be….
Note: This is the prologue for my new book “3-Word-Goals”. I will be sharing the work here as I write it. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support the writing.
Absolutely love your spirit. You are such a positive and unstoppable voice of idealism (but the good kind!).