A Lesson from Candy

Now I can probably guess the thought that went through your mind as you read the title of this blog posting.  "A lesson from candy?  What lesson can anyone ever learn from candy?"  Well perhaps you noticed that the C in Candy was capitalized.  But with it being a title one generally capitalizes all the bigger words, am I right?  Well even if it wasn't in the title, the C in this Candy would still be capitalized since it's in reference to one of the greatest actors of the 80's and 90's, Mr. John Candy. 
Now I've never met John Candy in person, and never will since he has passed away.  However, one of my favorite past times is watching good clean movies with my wife and kids every now and then, I can still have the chance to sit at the feet of some great actors and collect some of the gold nuggets they produce as they get into character.  As you can tell from my name drop earlier, one of the most recent shows our family watched that stared John Candy was "Cool Runnings."  Now if you have never seen this show, you're missing out.  It's the story of the first Jamaican bobsled team that ever competed in the Olympics and the struggle, and triumph over the obstacles they had to cross in order to even set foot on the ice, let alone push a borrowed bobsled down the track.  I won't spoil it for everyone and tell the whole story, but I would recommend watching it again, or for the first time if you haven't had the chance. 
I remember watching "Cool Runnings" as a child and laughing throughout the whole show.  I still did 2 weeks ago when I watched with my family.  But now instead of classifying the film as solely a comedy, after watching it this last time now that I've started this journey of mine in the self-improvement of myself, as well as turning around and helping those around me, I found this movie to contain great motivating power and quotes that work in multiple areas of life, not just as a competitor in the Olympics.
The quote that this post is based around comes from a dialog between John Candy, who plays the coach of the team, and 2 time Olympic gold medal winner of the bobsled event, and the driver of the Jamaican bobsled team.  Before the dialog began, the driver found out earlier in the day that John Candy's character was disqualified from competing in the Olympics and had his medals stripped from him because he had placed weights in the front of his sled.  Basically he was cheating.  Now having learned this information about his coach and mentor, it troubled the Olympian greatly and brought up the question to John Candy's character.  In response to the request for understanding of what would cause an already 2 time Olympic gold medalist to cheat in order to get another gold, the coach responded that he wanted the medals so bad that he would do anything to get more, even cheat.  When asked why even though he already had his gold, he stated "If you're not good enough without the gold, then you'll never be good enough with it." 
I believe that it is safe to say that most of the readers of this blog will never have the chance to compete for an Olympic gold medal.  However, each and every one of us is participating in our own version of the Olympic games everyday.  It's called the game of life.  Now even though gold medals aren't handed out with the best paychecks or straight 'A' report cards, sometimes it feels like others do get the gold medal paychecks and report cards while others are left with the silver or bronze, and others are left wanting and empty handed.  It is at this point when the medals, trophies, and paychecks are all handed out that the true test of our character is brought into play.  As John Candy's character stated, "If you're not good enough without the gold, then you'll never be good enough with it," this means that if you base your value as a human, or as a spouse, father, or son/daughter by being able to win the "gold" and nothing else, more often than not we will do anything within our ability to keep winning the gold.  Even cheat.  But if we base our value as a person by knowing that we gave it our best, regardless of the outcome, we will always be good enough.  Gold medal or not. 
Now being able see value in ourselves while having a negative account balance in the bank may seem like quite the challenge.  But let me let you in on a secret I've learned... it is possible to know that you are a valuable person and be in debt.  I've been there.  And even though it's hard to see your value while not having any money in the bank, the same quote from John Candy applies in this situation.  If you're not good enough without the money, or the 4-bedroom 3 car garage home, or corner office with a fantastic view, or time enough to spend doing your favorite hobbies, then you'll never be good enough with them.  The question that I hope everyone can respond with fan emphatic yes to a the end of each and every day is "Am I good enough?"  Now I may have not ever met you, but regardless of your station in life, you ARE good enough.  Some days it may take a little digging to come up with a reason why you are good enough, but I promise you, if you are still able to read this blog, you are good enough.  If you can sleep in a bed at the end of the day, you are good enough.  If you can stand at the bottom of your landing at home and have your daughter or son trust you enough to catch them as they jump into your arms after not seeing them all day while you've been at work... then you are good enough.  You mean the world to someone. 
So just remember if you want to improve your financial situation, or the size of your home, or any other aspect in your life, the first step to take is to remind yourself that where you are at right now is good enough and great.  Positive things are attracted to positive people and thoughts.  It took me a while to realize that.  Please learn faster than me. 
In closing I will provide a little bit of a spoiler alert.  The bobsled that carried the first Jamaican bobsled team had some issues and on their final run of the event, a blade came loose and caused the sled to flip.  The team did not finish... in the sled.  They did however get out of the sled, pick it up and carry it to the end.  And the cheers of the on lookers as they walked the remainder of the way to the finish line, and the celebration and cheering had by spectators and the Jamaican team at the finish line probably was louder than the celebrating of the team that took the gold medal that year.  Even without the gold medal, or any medal at that, the team knew in their hearts that they were winners.  And they were treated as winners.  The same applies to you.  Believe that you are valuable and a winner, and others will treat you as valuable and as a winner.  And eventually, you will get your gold.

Hello my friends, and welcome! 

I have wanted, for some time now, to share some of my thoughts with more people than just my family.  I also want another place to store my stories that I have experienced and learned from, and continue to draw analogies from other than within the pages of my journal.  So it’s here where I will share some of the most common everyday objects and experiences and show how through some reflection and pondering on them, they can represent some enlightening and motivating gold nuggets to life and help me see clearer, gain better relationships and improve my results in many different aspects of life.

Since this is post numero uno, I figure this should be my introduction.  My prelude to help you gain a better understanding as to who I am and build up a little rapport with you and provide a little background that will help you relate to me, and hopefully answer some of the questions you have like “well, why should I listen to this guy?” 

I’m the oldest brother of 5 children that grew up in a small rural community of Northern Utah.  Small would be an understatement since we didn’t get our first traffic light within our city limits until I was in high school.  The light was a long time coming since it was placed at the intersection that crosses a 4-lane highway that was essentially the main road that people came and left on in our small valley.  Most of the time crossing that road wasn’t too bad, you just had to shoot the gaps.  However in the winter, especially in the bitter cold early morning hours when visibility wasn’t too good already, the fog/inversion/cloud-of-methane-death-from-cow-manure made it way more difficult to see.  There were some times the fog would get so thick that we couldn’t make out the lights of oncoming traffic until they were about 40 yards away.  So you can imagine how this could make for an awesome start to the mornings as you sat at the intersection, rolling down the windows in the car, closing your eyes and just listening for the gaps from the sounds of engines and the tire treads on the pavement.  And because you had to have it be as quiet as possible, you had to turn the radio and, more painfully, the heater off in order to know when it was safe to shoot the gap in order to go to work and school.  And that’s probably why the light had to be installed as soon as it did, because the local high school was in the next town over.  Now they didn’t teach us in the driver’s ed class we attended to roll the windows down and listen for the gap, it was just something you eventually learned to do especially since your buddy carpooling to school with you got his car totaled since he didn’t roll his window down and met the business end of car going 50 on their way to town.   It basically turned into a modern day Charles Darwin experiment with new drivers.  Only those vehicles with drivers that could tolerate being cold for 3-5 minutes with the windows down in -10 degree weather survived.  Who needs coffee in the morning when you get to have the adrenaline rush of possibly losing your life and probably your car every morning?  Not this guy. 

So the community finally decided to put in a traffic light, even though they kind of prided themselves as being a small community without one, but it was time. 

One of my goals with this blog is to help get you out of the fog of life where there are a lot of us still waiting at the intersections and crossroads on our journeys waiting for the sound that it’s safe to continue.  What I eventually learned later on in life is that the higher in elevation I got, the thinner the fog/inversion smog became.  So when I was in the “higher” spots of the valley, I could see further down the road and could actually rely on my sight to know when it was safe to cross instead of freezing out me and my passengers because we had to roll the windows down and listen.  The same applies in life.  The higher we take our lives in getting out of the gunk of life (the fog), the clearer our vision on how to reach our goals become. 

Thanks for starting this journey with me, and hopefully I can be a mere stepping stone in being able to take you higher and start “seeing” the road your journey is currently on, but also to be able to see the beauty this life has to offer. 

So that’s just a small snippet of kind of the circumstance I grew up in.  And because I don’t want to turn you away by going on for hours introducing myself, I’m going to save some more for the next couple of posts to introduce you to more of myself.  But in closing, I do want to say this again.  Welcome my friends to A Higher U.