Tag: philosophy

Follow Your Own Path:

Why you have nothing to lose finding and walking your own path.

mikegiorgi6 Comments

For all of you none-sports fans out there, I promise the greater message behind this short story is worth the wait. So, bear with me!

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At some point last year, I had just finished watching the Chicago Blackhawks knock out James Neal and his Nashville Predators in game six of their first-round NHL play-off series.

It was one of the most exhilarating play-off series I’ve seen in a very long time. It was full of goals, hits, skill, clutch plays, over-times, heroes, villains, and drama. In short, it was everything that sports fans watches hockey for. 

James Neal, Alternate Captain of the Nashville Predators
James Neal, Alternate Captain of the Nashville Predators Photo Credit: Nashville Predators Official Twitter Page (@PredsNHL)

When the game ended, Chicago being victorious, I  couldn’t explain why I felt a deep sense of injustice inside of myself. That injustice followed me around all day, a looming shadow constantly nipping at my heels. Why was I so rattled over the result of a game?

It bothered me until I was forced to stop and face the feeling in an attempt to understand it. I wanted to sit with the emotion in the hope that eventually I would let it go. Catch and release.

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On the surface, the source of that feeling seemed fairly obvious. Nashville had done everything that every young player is taught would result in their success on the ice. Not only had they done everything right, but they had done it better than Chicago.

And yet there they were, eliminated from the play-offs.

I felt as though something had been taken from Nashville. Like they deserved better. But why?

The more I took a deeper look at this feelings, the more I began to realize the root of the problem wasn’t specific to sports. It’s something we all deal with, every day, a humans.

In this particular instance, my negative feelings lay in a strange idea of hockey “justice” that had been indoctrinated into me at a young age. As athletes, we are taught to place all of our faith into the notion that if you play the game a certain positive way, a specific positive result will follow.

The problem with investing so much faith into this belief is that in sports, as in life, there is no actual guarantee of that desired result.

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In life, we’re faced with these false promises every day of our lives.

If we just follow these simple academic guidelines, we will get into a good university and find a respectable job. If we just master these certain athletic skills and systems, we will soon be playing in the big leagues.

If we find a beautiful or handsome spouse, own a white picket fence, a family dog, two new cars in the garage, and make six figures, we will find happiness. If we act in this holy manner, we will go to heaven when we die.

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“Dear God, I’m sorry I didn’t eat my broccoli. Please let me into heaven. And give me that big red fire truck toy I asked mum for.”

Most of the time it is either implied, or explicitly stated, that not following these guidelines will lead to the opposite result. We will fail out of school, get cut from the team, be unhappy in life, or burn in hell.

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I think that these inferences hold merit on a basic level.

If you refuse to attempt a mastery of your athletic skills, you probably won’t make the show. If you refuse to dedicate yourself to reading and writing, your academic pursuits will definitely be more difficult. I think basic instructions on the improvement of dream-specific tools serve as strong groundwork for anyone pursuing those dreams.

There are certain things you can’t ignore while chasing your dreams. Things like hard work, passion, and sincerity will always be crucial to your success.

So why do I think our “How we should do things” sense of justice is such a potentially dangerous set of beliefs to put our faith into?

Because we ignore the possibility that a team like Nashville can follow the age-old formula, preached by hockey clergyman, and still lose the game.

We ignore the possibility that we can obtain that corner office and own the dream house in the suburbs and still be unhappy.

We can experience hell on earth even if we are morally good people.

We can have a chiseled six-pack and still be unhealthy, or unable to truly love ourselves.

We ignore the possibility that we can wake up at twenty nine years old in peak physical condition, be highly skilled, but still be in the minor leagues.

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It is in our ignorance of these very real possibilities that we create very real suffering for ourselves. We see life as unfair or unjust. We’re shocked and appalled when these negative possibilities come to fruition. We waste years pursuing something because someone else told us it will bring us joy. Then we feel as though life isn’t fair when that joy doesn’t magically appear.

Yet, there is absolutely no logical basis for us to feel this sense of injustice when these perverse results occur. The injustice lays only in the vast faith we’ve put into the doctrine of “how things should be.”

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In cases where one acts correctly but still suffers disaster, one is left bewildered and unable to fit the event into a scheme of justice. The world seems absurd.” – Seneca the Younger, as quoted in The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain De Botton.

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This may seem like a negative perspective, but it’s not.

I believe that understanding these very real negative possibilities gives us – as human beings – real strength.

If you can fail by following the rules then you can succeed without fanatically following them.

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There are no rules. Only choices. See the world, chase the sun.

You can be a respectable person without pursuing a traditionally esteemed occupation. You can publish an influential academic piece without attending Harvard, or topping all of your classes. You can be a great champion without a pedigree or without following the traditional path of your respective sport or discipline. If heaven is your goal, you can still find that stairway if you step outside of the three thousand year old guidelines written in scripture.

You can be a happy person without following the status quo or chasing the American dream.

I can’t give you a blueprint that guarantees success for your pursuits in life. I can’t tell you the way to happiness. But neither can anyone else.

So break the chains of expectation. Free yourself from the prison of how things should be, the shackles of how we should live. Stop wasting time following other people’s blueprint for happiness, achievement, success, or spirituality.

Carve the path that calls to you. Follow your dream whether or not convention considers it probable, because convention can’t guarantee you success or failure. All you can do in chasing your sun is keep your feet moving and your eyes on the light.

And let come what come may.

Be good to each other,

~ MG.

Photo Use Courtesy of:

(1) Cover: joecoculo.tumblr.com
(2) Boy Praying: ministry-to-children.com
(3) Girls at Bondi: blog.ishine365.com

On Substance:

mikegiorgi3 Comments

When I think of the word substance, I think of weight. I think of density. A bowling ball, a newborn baby, a dying sun. I think of what actually makes up the matter of someone or something, beyond the mask or façade on display.

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Disclaimer: I have no way of measuring the density of this artistic rendition of a star. But, to me, it looks dense.

We attach varied levels of importance to things tangible and intangible according to the meaning and value they have to our individual experience. Yet the word always carries the same meaning for all of us.

When we say something is of substance we are vouching that it possesses a depth beyond that which can be recognized on the surface, and that depth is essential to its meaning or existence. Substance is the existence of something beyond what we see and, more often than not, it is something of value.

Humans are the perfect example of what it means to have substance. We are much more than the surfaces we allow each other to see.

We are never skin deep. Each one of us is the result of the hundreds of thousands of intricate internal and external relationships and experiences. We appear to be made up of seamless and simple skin on the outside, yet internally we are a patchwork of a million personal pieces unique to ourselves.

It is this chaos inside of us, and not the calm surface, that makes us human. It is what separates us from one another; it is what differentiates us from the similar skin we’re all sharing.

Your internal substance is the part of you that isn’t easy to read or boring to learn about. The vivid and unique oils of your internal landscape are a personal portrait. Consistently being altered by the paintbrush of life, each stroke of colour adds to an already endless wonderland of adventure and intrigue.

Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat (1887) by Vincent van Gogh.
Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat (1887) by Vincent van Gogh.

So why then, are we so obsessed with hiding our complexity?

We meticulously maintain and groom our shallow surfaces. We carefully polish our vast array of smiles and we rehearse our jokes – for those are the weapons we’ll arm ourselves with during this weekend’s social campaign.

We place an unhealthy importance on the mastery of crafted emotions; our gasps of shock and fits of laughter must be believable and emphatic. We carefully iron out our faces after our trousers and we use the same mirror to apply our emotions in the same way we do our lipstick. We spray on our personality with our fragrances. We wear around our necks the persona we want others to see and then we hang Tiffany pendants and wooden crosses from them.

Our outward expressions, no longer useful tools in demonstrating the inward feelings we ignore, have become gadgets we use to accentuate our surface appearances. They serve the same purpose as our Marc by Marc Jacob clutch that matches our new Prada pumps or our Burberry tie that creates that must-have contrast with our Armani suit.

We’ve somehow began equating our surface with our substance. We’re only as beautiful as our most recent Facebook profile picture, the filter we choose for it, and how many likes it receives.

Our experiences are summed up in small collages and uploaded to Instagram, its value judged by how many people stamp their approval with little digital hearts.

We’re only as healthy as our body-fat percentage tells us we are, or the amount of gluten we avoid. Our spirituality is defined by the colour of our Lulu yoga mat.

We’ve forgotten that there is an entire world inside of us. It is a world full of experiences, memories, ideas, ambitions, and beliefs. It is a place that would take a lifetime for us to completely explore.

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There is a magnificent kingdom inside all of us. When will you find yours?

Yet we’ve never cared to examine or maintain this inner kingdom. Our inner selves have become, like Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, crudely sewn and stitched together with ideas scavenged from the surface. Surface-deep ideas of what the superficial world insists makes us a whole person.

Instead of planting the seeds of wisdom, acceptance, confidence and self respect in our endless internal garden, we’ve left the weeds of ignorance, denial, doubt, and loathing to grow in their place until they strangle us.

The demons who feed off of these negative plants – such as fear, jealously, sadness, and paranoia – have grown strong and have multiplied. They prowl unchecked in the shadows of ourselves, and have become the tyrant kings of our domains while we have become strangers in the only place we can truly call our own.

Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look there.” – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations.

So maybe skip the hair /nails /tanning appointment or the gym today (unless its leg day – don’t skip that). Find a patch of grass and sit in silence. Watch your endless thoughts drift slowly by like the calming stream that they are. Trade in your typical Saturday night debauchery for something that inspires real growth. Instead, sit around a table with a few close friends – turn off your phones – and really connect with one another in real, human conversation.

Whatever you feel inclined to do, take some personal time and trim the rabid weeds strangling your soul. Plant the positive seeds of wisdom, acceptance, confidence and self respect that will grow into the beautiful garden you can be. Take back your kingdom, even if it’s inch by inch.

Do a little bit every day. Like Rome, you won’t be built in a day. In fact, you’ll never stop planting, cultivating, and exploring yourself. As a child of the stars, you are as limitless and as endless as the beautiful universe from which you came.

You are dense. You are full of substance. You are perfect.

Be good to each other,

~ MG.

Photos Courtesy of:

Cover Art: Storm At Sea (1820-1830) by J.M.W Turner
Star: zodiac-compatibility.tumblr.com
Meditating woman: odishasuntimes.com

On Love (Part 2):

Be the crazy love you want to see in the world. Be the unconditional love and acceptance you want in your life.

mikegiorgi2 Comments

As humans, we love order. Our entire society is built upon it. We define, separate, categorize, analyze, dissect, reduce, and group everything and everyone around us. We build borders and set boundaries. It helps us to understand complexities greater than ourselves.

We break up our whole world into tiny pieces and keep them in the little boxes we’ve made for them. We define athletic greatness with numbers, statistics, and box scores. We measure wealth with commas, assets, and the contents of our safety deposit boxes. We peeled off the layers of nature until all that remained were atoms and then we sorted them into a table full of neatly named elements and little numbered boxes.

We like to live inside the box. Even our notion of what makes a human being hasn’t escaped this obsession to break things down. We’ve reduced the idea of ourselves to a simple vessel carrying two hundred and six bones, some vital organs, and a built-in laboratory capable of internally conducting complex chemical reactions.

The soul doesn’t scientifically exist because we can’t measure and categorize it. As humans, we love to restrict.

I’ve never been able to fully relate to our society’s ruthless obsession with categorizing everything. Especially when it comes to the notion of love, which has unfortunately fallen prey to these restrictive and reductive tendencies of our species.

I’m not referring to the Shakespearean kind of love – which funnily enough is an example of the categorization I’m referring to – but the type of affinity that occurs naturally between humans. We’ve taken that inherent feeling of togetherness, tenderness, and appreciation toward one another and we’ve broken it down and analysed it to death.

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Tribal Goodness.

Family, friends, acquaintances, strangers, lovers, enemies, siblings, parents, teachers, team-mates, in-laws, pets, gay, straight, bisexual, co-workers, classmates, platonic, physical, bromance, romance, showmance, mentally stimulating, spiritual connection, intimate, lustful, infatuation, the list is infinite.

We’re taught to rank our love and have been given various definitive categories that we can sweep that love into. They place limitations on what displays of love are acceptable in our relationships depending on the category it falls into. Like an aisle in a grocery store, we force our love into clearly marked boxes and shelve them accordingly.

Looking for way to show your buddy that he’s appreciated? Try a manly, five-tiered handshake to fist-bump-explosion combo, found in aisle five under “bromance.” Looking for a loving way to say goodnight to your daughter? You’ll find just what you need with a kiss-on-the-forehead located in aisle two – “parent-child relationship.”

As a society we’ve bought into this merciless dissection of love despite the fact that it contradicts everything we truly know about it.

Love is a powerful universal force. By its very nature it is raw, wild, and free. It is not something that is tamed, controlled or bottled but something that is channelled, nurtured, and unleashed. It is not restricted by earthly words and its language is spoken from within.

Yet we rush to bury the budding bulbs of love into the labelled drawers society has marked for us. We throw today’s bulb into a drawer labelled “friend-zone” and tomorrow’s into “too old for me.” In these darkened drawers we keep these bulbs and then actually wonder why the love that blooms is as black as Cornelius van Baerle’s tulip.

I think of all the amazing people in my life and I’ve realized it has been the light of a love that was never bottled that has attracted them into my life, and what has kept them here. It is a love which, admittedly, is a love that can be a little silly at times.

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Bromance? Showmance? Or just a bit of silly and wild love?

I’ve given some of my closest male friends big wet kisses on the mouth when I felt the moment called for such a display of love. Despite the fact they are rugged, heterosexual men, they accept my random smooches on the beak because they know where it comes from. They know it comes from a love that is unfiltered and unrelenting. They know that I know their every fault and all of their vices and yet my love has blossomed infinitely regardless of this.

Love is an untamed force. When we try to control it, it destroys us. When we try to imprison it, it enslaves us. When we try to understand it, it leaves us feeling lost and confused.” – Paulo Coelho, The Zahir: A Novel of Obsession.

This is because wild and natural love grows alongside wild and natural acceptance. The people that remain in my life – near and far – are all people who I’ve loved and accepted in this way.

Whether its an unexpected Skype call or a postcard in the mail, I’m constantly reminded of how strong of a bond is created by just loving people with all of my sincerity.

I truly believe those who are in my circle of love – and those I’m grateful to say include me in theirs – are there through very little influence of my own and largely through the natural and powerful selection of love itself.

They have each accepted and embraced my untamed and crazy love – the love of a wild wolf. They have returned that love with as much or as little love as they possibly can. It doesn’t always add up, but love doesn’t keep score. The important thing is that they have accepted my silly love and, in exchange, I’ve accepted theirs. This is how I know all of the people in my life, all of those I hold dear, are supposed to be here with me.

To be honest, I can’t think of anything more pure, noble, and sincere than letting love continue to govern who is and isn’t in my life.

Love is love, and your love belongs to you alone. It isn’t defined by the norms of your culture or your society. It is defined by however you choose to allow that love to manifest itself.

So go out and unleash your love. Let it be silly. Kiss your bestie. Fist bump your mom or pops. Hug it out with that old lady next door.

Be the crazy love you want to see in the world.

Be the unconditional love and acceptance you want in your life. Don’t tame the love of that wild wolf under your skin.

Stop defining your love. Instead, let your love define you.

Be good to each other,

– MG.

Photos Courtesy of:

Cover Art: Two Lovers In An Interior by a Yellow Blind by Suzuki Harunobu
Women on a Road Trip: http://www.theplaidzebra.com 

On Reliance:

mikegiorgi4 Comments

Our minds are lined with shelves overflowing with advice that we’ve accumulated over the years. Mental libraries, divided by subjects such as love, life, and happiness. Many of the tomes covering these various subjects are made up of simple but memorable sayings to help us along our path. 

Though I believe these expressions are beneficial in keeping the bigger picture in our minds, I find they often lack depth and substance. One such expression I hear used often, and have been guilty of using myself, is:

if you love something, set it free; if it comes back to you, its yours.”

When I paint a picture in my head of what this expression means to me, I picture a person opening a birdcage and letting a yellow canary fly out of a narrow apartment window, or a little boy letting his excited terrier off of the leash in a park. Eventually, both owners have their pets return dutifully back to them. I think this expression serves as a powerful microcosm of the dependent relationship dynamics which characterize many modern romances.

The problem with this expression, and the picture it paints, is it associates the notion of love with both ownership and reliance. I think both the notions of ownership and reliance are contrary to that of love, yet they’ve found a place in many of our intimate relationships.

The one you love is not a car. You didn’t buy him from a salesman. She does not come with ownership papers. In order to set something free you must first be the owner of it (or at least have it in your possession). You had to of restricted his or her freedom in the first place. It seems tragically contradictory to fall in love with something when it is wild and free – whether its a bird soaring in the sky or the beautiful stranger you met on the train – only to try and capture and cage it. We have allowed the complex toxins of private ownership to leak into the simple, pure, and unrestricted stream of love. Loving someone isn’t releasing them. Loving someone is never wanting to cage them in the first place.

Reliance, in my opinion, is a much more subtle and dangerous form of ownership. The canary doesn’t return to its cage out of love, it returns because its the only source of nourishment and drink that it has ever known. The canary has grown to love its chains. It no longer believes in itself. The canary is in a state of dependency and has learned to fear a life without the cage. It fears being apart from the owner it depends on for safety, warmth, food, and water. The decision to return to the owner is both self serving, and convenient. The relationship has, from the outset, fostered a sense of real necessity.

The Bird Cage (1910) by Frederick Carl Frieseke
The Bird Cage (1910) by Frederick Carl Frieseke

I see so many words which emerge during conflict in today’s relationships that expose the same sense of necessity. We have to stay together. We need to work things out. We can’t just give up. These words are followed by the revealing of the foundations of reliance the relationship has been built upon. “She is the only one who understands me.” “No one else will accept me like he does.” “We’ve been through it all together” “I can’t be happy without her.” “I’ll be alone without him.”

We pile up these imagined conclusions as though our world didn’t exist before this person came into our lives. We begin to perceive life with this person as essential to maintaining the things we value in our world. These things range from the relatively narrow in scope, such as a specific circle of friends, a shared living arrangement, custody of the children, or the new puppy, to those broader in scope, such as our ability to be happy, accepted, appreciated, or loved. We become the canary. Our reliance becomes our cage.

I think it’s important to note that not all reliance is bad. Being committed doesn’t mean being caged. Too many people confuse commitment with a lack of freedom. Being in a relationship doesn’t mean being reliant on someone else. I really do hope the people in my life that I love the most know they can rely on me. I hope they know they can come to me for any type of help – for advice (although I can’t promise it will be very good advice), when they are feeling blue, need a shoulder to cry on, a wing man for the night, a hug, the shirt off of my back, or all of the above.

I want my significant other to rely on me. I want her to be certain she can rely on me for unconditional love, acceptance, and support for the rest of her days.

But there is a major difference between being in a relationship where you can rely on one another, and one where one (or both) of you feel like you must rely on your significant other. 

In the former situation, a couple is adding additional wind under each others’ wings. In the latter scenario, one or both partners are chained to the other by shackles cast in iron reliance.

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.” – Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays.

We must be the canary without the cage. Be responsible for your own happiness, acceptance, self-belief, growth, success, and well-being, because no one else can ever give you those things. Don’t create your own prison by accepting the delusion that someone can.

And, as much as you may want to, you can’t provide any of those things for another person, either. So don’t be the one caging another canary with promises to provide them with those things. 

Instead, accept that you are responsible for your own life, and others have the same obligation to themselves as you do. The sooner you do that, the sooner you’ll find another canary just as wild, free, and as perfect as you are.

There is nothing more powerful than a love that is born out of love. I can’t think of anything more pure or beautiful than two souls soaring together for no reason other than the mutual respect and endless love they share for one another. That is a flight that will last an eternity.

Be good to each other,

– MG.

On Bravery:

It is in these darkest of moments that we, as humans, possess the inner strength to find a way. We pick up an oar and we paddle. We crawl across the blackness centimetre by centimetre, with every stroke bringing us deeper into that haunting abyss. Surrounded by fear, with no light to guide us, we find the flicker of a flame within ourselves.

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As a little boy I was afraid of the dark. I’m not even sure what it was about the dark that terrified me as much as it did. Finding myself in darkness, a wave of dread would wash over me. I drowned in that great unknown which floods any heart engulfed by its greatest fear. Paddling furiously, with nothing but dread and panic to swim toward, I would try desperately not to choke on the violent waves of darkness crashing against me.

I often found myself envying those friends of mine that seemed unaffected by darkness. Some of them were even bold enough to sleep in their dark rooms without a night light. Those boys were legends. I thought I was a coward and they were the bravest souls I had ever met, because I confused their lack of fear with bravery. Life, however, has funny ways of teaching us lessons about what it means to be brave.

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Clearly one of the children who were not afraid of the dark.

Those of us who were lucky enough to survive the voyage through the arduous seas of adolescence, too often found ourselves in dark and stormy waters that shook our soulful ships down to their very core. Yet no matter how violent the gale, we sailed on with our tattered banners until they were glowing in the light of the dawn and the storm had finally passed. We came to realize we are so much more than masts of bone and sails of skin. We are durable. We are bendy. We possess a power somewhere deep in our hulls that cannot be measured by stress tests or feats of strength.

I believe it is the greatest storms which teach us the most important lessons. The greatest struggles sire the smoothest sailors. It will be such a storm which will teach us the true meaning of bravery. Life has its ways of forcing us to face our deepest fears. It has its way of sitting us in that dark room.

Though I recall my great storm well, I do not remember exactly when my ship changed its course. I do not remember the sun dipping beyond the horizon. I can only remember the darkness of the night. Life had put me on a ship that was empty with no wind in its sails. My breath would have been visible in the icy night sky, had there been enough light to see it. I was stranded in the deepest darkest waters of the mind and, like those heroic friends from childhood, had no light in the night to guide me.

I think, in some form or another, we all experience this moment in our lives. A desperate moment in time, void of hope and happiness, that threatens to completely shatter our resolve. We find ourselves lost and afraid to move. With our ship sinking, we feel it is our duty to go down with it. It could be something as little as cramming the night before an exam, or as monumental as hearing the cancer has returned. Regardless of the depth of the dark waters we’re thrown into, staying the course – whatever that may be – becomes the portrait of insanity and we begin to paint the thought of surrender with the most beautiful and exotic of oils. Nothing seems as simple as lying on the deck and closing our eyes, waiting to welcome the black waves as they devour captain and craft.

It is in these darkest of moments that we, as humans, possess the inner strength to find a way. We pick up an oar and we paddle. We crawl across the blackness centimetre by centimetre, with every stroke bringing us deeper into that haunting abyss. Surrounded by fear, with no light to guide us, we find the flicker of a flame within ourselves. We trust in that feeble fire because it comes from a place that no darkness can breach. It comes from a place we don’t understand, but that we have an unwavering faith in.

If we take the generally accepted definition of bravery as a quality which knows no fear, I have never seen a brave man. All men are frightened.” General George S. Patton, Drive to Victory – General Patton’s Third United States Army.

Those who walk into darkness without a fear of the dark are fighting a battle they have already won. They may be bold and courageous, but they are not brave. The brave are not without fear. On the contrary, it is only when we are overwhelmed with fear that it is possible to truly demonstrate bravery.

The brave, when sinking into the terror of the deep, find a way to paddle through. The brave, when consumed and surrounded by darkness, find a light within themselves. It is those who trudge undeterred through the darkest parts of themselves that are the true champions of bravery.

The fact that you’re reading this is enough to tell me you’ve made it through your share of storms. Maybe you’ve even survived your great hurricane, your grand and defining moment. Our life, however, is a single voyage comprised of many storms and there will always be another on the horizon. It’s part of being human. Before you die, you will face many more storms in all aspects of your life. Some of them will terrify you. Always remember that fear doesn’t define you; we cannot choose the things which strike terror into our hearts.

But we can choose to paddle on. We can choose to be brave, because bravery is within each and every single one of us. You just have to know it’s inside of you. I promise you that it is. You are not a coward. You are unwavering and unbreakable. You are strong. You are brave.

Be good to each other,

– MG.

Photo of the boy in a costume is courtesy of funderlandpark.com

On The Journey:

I think when any of us take that leap of faith in ourselves, pull up our ancient roots, and jump outside of our comfort zone, these buried feelings will naturally float to the surface. We need to embrace these feelings because, in the end, they will always be our greatest pillars of strength.

mikegiorgi4 Comments

Airport regulations had determined this was as far as we could travel together. I put down my carry-on bag, kissed my mom, and hugged my dad goodbye. I told them I loved them, picked up my bag, and trudged toward the terminal.

It all felt rushed. It felt like it somehow wasn’t enough of a goodbye, but deep down I knew there was no such thing. We all know it. We will never truly be ready to take a leap of faith, especially a leap of faith in ourselves.

I wanted to look back as I was walking away, but I couldn’t risk letting my parents see their twenty six year old man-child of a son with tears in his eyes. So instead of seeing them one last time I just kept walking, step-by-step and teary eyed, until I found my way through security and into my seat on a plane heading to the city of angels. Those were the first official steps of a personal journey that was long overdue.

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In my entire (short) stay in L.A, I didn’t see one single angel. [Artwork: Part of the piece “Sistine Madonna” by Raphael (1512)]

I remember the feelings swirling inside of my stomach after I had left LAX and was floating from cloud to cloud somewhere above the pacific. Each moment took me further away from a net of safety I had kept under myself for my entire life.

Without that net to fall back on, my fears and vulnerability were naked and exposed. I felt a deep sense of loneliness, fear, uncertainty, and had absolutely no trust in myself.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” – Lao-tzu, The Way of Lao-tzu.

I think when any of us take that leap of faith in ourselves, pull up our ancient roots, and jump outside of our comfort zone, these buried feelings will naturally float to the surface. We need to embrace these feelings because, in the end, they will always be our greatest pillars of strength.


AFRAID:

I had just taken a massive dive into the depths of the great unknown. It can be dark and terrifying in there – for any of us. The journey can be anything. Whether you’re changing schools, considering a swap in professions, or moving to a foreign land, always remember that the inherent fear that accompanies such a leap does not define you.

It is the bravery you’re showing in facing that darkness that makes you who you are. You are strong and brave for even taking those little steps into the unknown.

The best part? You will never break. You may feel like you’re bending at times, but the unknown will never snap you. It will only show you your own durability. It will show you that you’re not made of glass, you’re not fine china. Instead you’ll see that you can bend and twist. You are as strong as the blacksmith’s hammer and as unbreakable as the anvil he hammers upon. The great unknown will teach you to trust in yourself.


LONELY:

I remember the feeling of loneliness eating away at my insides as I lay in bed over 18000km from everything and everyone I had ever known and loved. I had confused not having those people with me in the physical sense with having lost them completely. Yet time alone has the unique ability to change profoundly how we understand the things nearest to our hearts.

In time, we learn that we are never truly alone. The relationships you have with those closest to you have created bonds of immense love that you carry within you always. That love shines through you.

That love returns to you perpetually in the form of those people in your life that love you just as dearly as you love them. You will see that you don’t need them physically present to have them by your side.

Love is the one thing we can possess as humans that transcends both physical space and time. With this understanding also comes the realization that we’ve actually brought our safety nets with us. That reassurance is our protective light. For the dark depths of the abyss feasts only on those who are alone and unprotected. The courage and strength we get from knowing, deep down, that those close to us are still supporting and loving us is all we really need.


LOST:

Even with a rough plan of obtaining my Juris Doctor in place, I still had no real sense of moving forward and no real end goal in sight. I was lost. But something inside of me forced me onward. I kept moving, and so will you. We keep moving because we know inherently that it’s better than standing still and letting the entire world spin around us. We keep moving so we never get stuck.

And then a funny thing happens. We look back at our own footprints in the sand and we realize it’s never been about where we’re going. It’s about the thousands of steps we’ve taken along the way. It’s about the steady hardening of our soft little paws. It’s about seeing how we grow with each step, each moment of progression.

It’s about the pieces of yourself – what makes you whole – that you’ll rediscover and collect along the way. For on your journey you won’t be finding a newer, better version of yourself, you’re simply remembering who you’ve always been. And who you’ve always been has always been perfect.

So keep your head up. Keep yourself moving. Travel down your personal path, whatever it may be, every single day. Some days you’ll only muster a few small steps, and that’s okay. Just as long as you stay the course.

Be excited to look back on the steps you’ve left behind instead of stressing every day about where you may or may not end up. It’s never been about the destination. It’s about the journey, and yours belongs to you.

You are not alone and you will not break. Trust in yourself, because you’re already on your way.

Be good to each other,

– MG.

On Failure:

mikegiorgi14 Comments

We humans have a tragic desire to oversimplify everything.

Even the infinitely complex relationships of universal forces are not safe from us. We have an incessant need to group these forces into simple, conflicting, polar relationships.

Light vs dark, night vs day, love vs hate, and good vs evil are all examples of our tendency to simplify intricately woven dichotomies into singular conflicts between two opposing forces.

But life isn’t that simple. We all exist in that blurry somewhere between black and white.

Youdothistoherorhim
A classic struggle between good and evil. [Source: The Lion King].
I’m not sure when exactly it happened, but our perception of failure has also fallen prey to this same oversimplified categorization.

We see it as the opponent of success. We see it as success’ polar and negative opposition.

We’ve villainized the idea of failure to the extent that we’ve systematically set about eradicating it from our lives. We avoid failure. We avoid putting ourselves into situations where failure is even a possibility. We avoid the memories of our past failures and we shudder at the thought of future failures.

Many of us cannot think of anything worse than becoming a failure in the eyes of our friends, family, and complete strangers. We’ve come to fear the notion of failure and, as such, we’ve given the word power.

The power we’ve given the idea of failure affects us all in our daily lives. It bothers me to see so many of us struggle against the possibility of it.

Whether it’s the mastering of Olympic lifts, speaking a new language, learning an instrument, trying to dance the tango, pursuing an intimate relationship, or perfecting the handstand, we’ve all allowed the concept of failure to hinder us from experiencing so many of our passionate desires – big or small.

It’s heartbreaking to think that we’re willing to sacrifice so many of these miniature adventures in life because of our fear of failing.

What’s worse is the realization that this crippling effect is only magnified when it comes to our biggest dreams and life’s ambitions.

Especially since failing is an essential part of achieving those dreams.

There are people who never make mistakes because they never have sensible projects.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Maxims and Reflections.

Think back to when we were children.

Think of the scraped knees, the summers we spent in casts and slings, the reprimanding we received when we came home with ripped and muddied clothes, and the countless other war stories we wrote as little gladiators.

child-knocked-out-tooth
We’ve all been this little dude. [Source drgreene.com ].
We were certainly fearful as children.

Whether it was fear of the dark, of the big dog next door, or of the monster we believed was in our closet, childhood could be a terrifying time.

When it came to the prospect of failure, however, we were fearless.

We were Roman legionnaires, Greek myrmidons, and Apache warriors.

We crashed our bikes, we played in the mud, we fell off the monkey bars, we slipped on frozen ponds, and we doggy paddled hopelessly until we sunk to the bottom of the pool.

We tried and we failed, and then we got up to do it all over again.

We did this literally thousands of times.

Eventually, at a point in time I doubt any of us really remember, we stopped failing at those things. We could ride our bike, we could skate on ice, and we could swim laps. That road to success was laid with countless bricks of failure.

As much as we benefited from our childhood mistakes, our witch hunt against failure has fooled us into stealing these lessons away from our youth.

I see an overabundance of participation ribbons. I see schools removing failing grades. I see sports being played without the score being kept.

I see jungle gyms being replaced by rubber prisons to serve as the vanguard against the dark arts of scraping one’s knees. I see kids with headsets on playing their x-box and growing up without team mates because their parents believe hockey or karate is too dangerous for their fragile son or daughter.

We don’t have much as children.

We have to go to bed before the grown ups. We have to eat that smelly broccoli before we’re allowed to leave the table.

We’re not even allowed to wear our favourite Ninja Turtles shirt because it has mustard stains on it and it’s picture day at school.

It’s bullshit, really.

The one thing we truly possess as children, however, is freedom from socially constructed fears.

We don’t care if we look stupid. I mean, we cut our own hair withCrayola scissors and actually think it looks good for Christ’s sake. We don’t care if people see us fall, drop the ball, or crash into a tree.

We’re determined and unbreakable.

We’re made of rubber on both the inside and the out. We bounce, we’re bouncy.

So why then are we so hell-bent on destroying that for our earthly heirs? Do we really want a planet full of people who have never experienced the lessons and subsequent growth of failure?

I’m sure most of us have seen Jim Carey’s speech on fear. I think it’s a wonderful way of looking at life and at failure.

I agree completely with his line of reasoning – if the potential to fail exists in both playing it safe and chasing your dream, it doesn’t make sense to choose the former – but I also think it extends further than that.

Failure is an absolute necessity in obtaining the things we want.

If we want to achieve anything in life, we will experience failure. This is a certainty and we must accept it. Only through accepting and embracing that simple fact can we take that first sincere step in our personal journey.

ninja-assassin
There is still a little warrior in all of us.

Instead of removing childhood from the child, we should be re-discovering that childhood as adults.

We should all be learning from the little warriors we used to be.

Be the tiny gladiators who innately understand the importance of failure on the way to success.

Be the mini commandos who were not socially conditioned to equate failure with the opposite of achievement.

Those kids are still in us, somewhere. We are still bouncy. So go out today and scrape your knees. Fall off of the monkey bars and look stupid.

Do something you suck at.

Fail every single day and I promise you that we will never stop learning and growing together.

Be good to each other,

– MG.