Hello? Is There Anybody in There...?

Just nod if you can hear me...

Good, good, now that I have your attention, WAKE THE FUCK UP!

I was having a good heart-to-heart with a friend the other day and he asked me a very simple question, one that should be easy to answer, a no-brainer really. He asked if I, or anyone I know, has had good news this year. I really had to think about it, and I mean REALLY had to think about it. After quite some time, I was able to come up with absolutely nothing. In fact, it was quite the opposite...separation and divorce, court dates, job loss, cancer diagnoses, mental health problems, bankruptcy, sick kids, and the list goes on and on and on. Thus far, this has been a shitty year for almost everybody I know. My little family has been relatively (no pun intended) removed from all of this and maybe even managed to buck the trend. We were very fortunate when our little guy was born healthy and happy but we are still affected by all of the misery surrounding us.

I know that a lot of these issues are self-imposed. We grow complacent, we take our good fortune for granted, and we only notice something when it slaps us in the face....

• Your spouse comes home from work every night at the same time smelling like him/herself, you have dinner, get the kids to bed, settle down in front of the TV to numb your brain, and eventually go to bed without once uttering words of love or support. Eventually said spouse comes home from work, packs his/her bags and leaves and you're left wondering why....see previous sentence.  

• You get a call from your doctor and the lump you noticed months ago in your armpit is now the size of an orange. Surgery, radiation, chemo...if only you'd acted on this immediately.

• Your boss calls you into the office, hands you a pink slip and you start raging and muttering about the many years of good service you put into the company. Your boss pulls up your internet browsing history and right there are the hours upon hours you spent online shopping and perusing Facebook to assuage your intense feelings of remorse for not finishing school and settling for a job that doesn't make you happy but pays the bills.  

The above are just a few examples of the ways in which we screw up our cushy lives and having to reread what I wrote is really fucking depressing.

How do we get stuck in ruts like these? Why? Because we're inherently lazy. We get comfortable in our daily routine, we talk ourselves out of anything better and berate ourselves when we try and fail. Opportunities pass us by because we're exhausted and don't want to make the effort to jump on them. We over schedule ourselves with mindless shit instead of compiling once-in-a-lifetime events and experiences. What's even worse is that we are passing on these poor habits to our children. They learn how to be mediocre from us, they learn to settle for less from us, and they'll end up on the boring train to nowhere because of us.

I've had some mind-blowing experiences in my life but not as of late as I've also fallen into the daily grind. I'm making a concerted effort to get out of this bullshit ditch and to bring my kids with me. If I decide to jump out of a plane or off a cliff, I want them there, watching or participating. I want to teach them that settling is not an option and that they deserve every advantage a life full of adventure has to offer. Last but not least, I want to be the person they read about in their books. Who's in?