Originally posted on Facebook HERE
Foggy today. Long weekend with the 4th falling on Monday this year. Great time to reflect. Well, I do that every Sunday anyway, right? So today is no different. I’ll turn 63 next month, and in looking back on my life – wow. I’m overwhelmed with what I’ve been through. All of it. What a ride. I’ve had some extreme highs and lows. I’m glad I got to grow up in the 60s and 70s. What a cool time to be alive. The music! Just fantastic. I could go on and on, but I look back on my childhood fondly as well as my hometown of Oshkosh, WI. Still love going there to this day. Then, getting into drugs and alcohol at the age of 14. 1974 was quite the year for me. I also started playing bass guitar that year. And drinking and smoking pot and taking acid… I was 14. And I got addicted to drugs and alcohol. What a ride that was! You’re not really living your life from the soul beneath your thoughts when you have that going on. Eventually the bottle starts sucking the life out of you. I remember several time questioning if I wanted to live at all. I know that despair. I’ve been there. It’s nothing I would ever recommend. But by a crazy series of events (documented in my book Feed Your Angel), I quit using on November 1, 1988. I was 29. At that point in my life, I had more “using” years than sober ones. And… my father had passed when I was only 22. I got no sober adult years with him. That’s on me. Mom got to see who I became once I got sober, but not dad. That’s some painful, heart wrenching stuff for me to write about there. But I’m still sober today, over 33 years later. Sometimes… life will guide you if you let it. What had to happen for me to get sober, what had to happen for me to meet my wife, what had to happen for me to become a financial advisor – and how all those stories intertwine with each other?.. Insane how it all worked out. But when life presents you with opportunities, and you follow your heart, amazing things can happen. Thinking a bit on how I spend my time these days I guess. I work a lot. From 1977-2005 I lived mostly by income from playing in bands. My days were much different then. Wake up whenever I wanted – around noon usually. Do whatever I wanted – shows were mostly on the weekends and one night a week for practice, that was the job. It left my days free to do whatever I wanted to. Mostly band stuff I guess, booking the band, working on marketing materials, later on designing and maintaining the website, etc… but I had a lot of “free” time and got a lot more sleep back then. Now – it’s a totally different lifestyle, but I love what I do. And I still play as well. But, really – the key is doing something you love. I’m so grateful that throughout my life, no matter what was going on, I was able to do things I loved and make a living at it. We only get so many moments in life. The older I get, the more I think it’s important to love each and every one of them. And whenever possible share that love of life with everyone else in the world in whatever way you can. Because if you hate your moments, you’ll hate your life, and that’s what you’ll be putting out into the Universe. We have altogether too much of that already, and we all have choices. Do what you can to make every moment count, and stay open to new opportunities. Your intuition is God’s guidance. It pays to get in touch with that and live from there. What a ride 🙂
