The Truth Hurts

Fog
Fog

The truth hurts. The truth can also set us free.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever!”

Can’t you just hear people saying this, or thinking it?  I say it too.  We all do sometimes.

In fact, I’ve said this all my life.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

Until a few years ago when things began to change.

One close friend describes me as, “A Transformed man.”

Just yesterday, at jeffnoel.org (spirit) I posted about the fog, the semi-conscious state many of us seem to go through life with. Some may call it auto-pilot.

As we are into the fourth day of the new year already, wanted to remind everyone that the goal from all this writing is:

  1. To leave a trail for a young child
  2. To help others with their goals
  3. To eventually raise money to find a cure

These things have the ability to help transform anyone. At the moment, it’s working slowly, but powerfully.

Reach Relevance Impact

Reach.  Relevance.  Impact.

Just before the entire Columbia, South Carolina airport power went out, I was filming a one-take-You Tube video of another airport hallway billboard sign.

Had the power not gone off, I would have finished the one-take-You Tube video with, “What I am trying to do is expand my reach, relevance and impact.”

I mean, who doesn’t want to do that?

Or maybe, it’s just crazy talk, or inappropriate, to think that one person might start something that could help make the world a better place.

Rocky Mountain High

That image of those three bicyclists at 8,000 feet, with the Colorado Rocky Mountains above and below them,  was permanently etched on my brain.

I had just turned 13.  And yet, I was thinking and dreaming as if I were an adult.

Their summit, the Continental Divide, was still potentially a few hours away for them, at 10,000-plus feet elevation.

Our bus would reach the summit in just ten more minutes.

Have you ever dreamed of doing something uncommonly care-free and ultra-adventurous?

Why?

What is that voice inside all of us that speaks to our desire to go on an adventure that is far beyond our present understanding and capabilities?

And wouldn’t it be nice if we could still tap into that now, and make the adventure of being a responsible adult, exciting and even, “fashionable”?

jeff noel Burning The Candle?

jeff noel Burning The Candle?

A friend recently asked, “So how has writing five daily blogs affected you. What have you given up”?

I’ve given up:

  • Watching TV
  • Walking our Dog
  • Yard word, particularly our perennial gardens
  • Reading the (online) Orlando Sentinel, CNN, etc
  • Spending time with Family
  • Cut back on exercise (believe it or not)
  • Cut back on sleep (yawn)
  • And a few other things

It struck me later that night, while reflecting on his question and the answers.  Cutting back on work, or anything remotely related to cutting back on work, wasn’t mentioned.

I am addicted to work.  Many people are and simply don’t know it because they associate with others who are the same.

Nevertheless, I’m driven to create something bigger than myself, to help raise money until a cure is found for Crohns disease.  What are you sacrificing?  What are you sacrificing it for?

What Would You Do?

If you knew you could not fail, what would you do differently?  Know what I’ve learned in 50 years? All these quotes, cliches, sayings, parables, etc. – they only work if you do.

“No rules for success will work if you don’t”.

“Everything takes longer than we think it will, or longer than we want it to”.

“If your goal isn’t impossible, you’re not reaching high enough”.

Quote me.  Love me.  Hate me.  It doesn’t matter.  What matters is what you do.  Got it?

For anyone thinking it’s more sophisticated than this, it ain’t.  Carpe diem!