THE CHALLENGE: DAY 30!

Are You Willing...?

Well, we finally made it.  Welcome to Day 30 of the 30 Day Challenge!  It's been a long and windy road this past year, but we have finally arrived to our destination. 

I began writing the 30 Day Challenge towards the end of the holiday season last year with the intention of providing a small set of daily notes to help motivate and move my readers.  Now we are at the end of one journey with the beginning of another just around the corner -- 2013 and the beginning of a new calendar year will be here in the blink of an eye!

This past weekend I heard an inspiring talk by a local pastor and I immediately took note of some key points knowing that they would be entirely relatable to this 30th and final entry date.  The topic was on 'Movement in Community' and he posed two questions to the audience that I want to now pose to you:  1) Do you know your own skills and talents?  AND 2) Are you willing?

Every learned writer knows to never provide an adjective without a subject -- so perhaps you are now irritated and asking me "Willing for what?"  Rephrase it.  "Willing to DO what?"

The first entry for this series is dated nearly 12 months ago in December of 2011 and the discussion is intended to lay the groundwork for self improvement and strong self awareness that will lead to creating new habits in a new year.  We talked about exercise, healthy eating, meditating, praying, talking, listening, writing, sitting, and the list goes on...  My favorite tip and reminder will still get a plug even in this final entry:  Drink more water!

Through the 30 entries that make up the 30 Day Challenge you have been given the opportunity to read as a spectator and absorb stories and life lessons that span (hopefully!) from entertaining to life changing.  I now come back to this final question and challenge of the series:  "Are you willing?" 

Are you willing to take this information and DO something with it?  Are you willing to get in the game and step off the sidelines?  Are you willing to take action and prepare to influence your own life as well as the world around you?

If I have accomplished nothing else in these last 11 months, it is my sincere hope that I have inspired you to say YES.  Yes, you deserve a fulfilling life.  Yes, you can make the time for some more 'personal time'.  Yes, you are willing and ready to take action. 

This life will throw words like busy, hard, and tired in your path. There will be plenty of reasons to grab hold of and then be used as an excuse for not getting in the game.  You are stronger, and now hopefully wiser, than to succumb to the path of least resistance.

I plan to live a life in which I feel set apart and capable of transcending the mundane. And I sincerely hope that you have the fight in you to do the same.

 "To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, day and night, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting."

-- e.e. cummings

The Challenge - Day 30

Physical

You are given only one body in this life and it wasn't exactly intended to be altered and adjusted by doctors and their scalpels.  Treat it like a temple, or at least as well as the fancy and expensive car you hope to have last well beyond its average driving mileage.  Use the right fuel (eat healthy!), tune it up (exercise!), and don't be afraid to give it some TLC (manicures and massages count).

Personal

It is so easy, and very commendable, to get lost in spending your time serving and nurturing others.  Take a moment, ideally once a day, to look inward and think selfishly.  Think about your own hopes and desires for the day, for the week, or for this life.  You deserve to have personal priorities and goals -- that's the easy part.  Making time to works towards accomplishing them is the true challenge.  Give it your best shot because the 'try' is the first step in the right direction.

Spiritual

This world is a big, messed up, and often confusing place.  I know that there is a power greater than me capable of seeing a much bigger picture beyond the one encapsulated by the frame of my personal life.  I plan to continue to trust in that big picture and such hope is what my spirituality is really all about -- faith of the unknown.