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I took my son to a judged piano test. He wasn’t nervous at all. He went in, played his songs, did what he needed to, and walked out. No sweat.

Afterwards, we went to Wal-Mart. We my wife when we were there to see if she needed anything. I stopped in for a new bulb for one of my car’s headlamps. Yeah, she needed a few things. We spent $55 on groceries. In the end, they didn’t have the bulb I needed.

I ate lunch with my sons at around noon.

I cleaned the house.

A new babysitter came over, so my wife and I went on a date. We saw “Defiance” at the movie theater. When the movie was over, we drove to Barnes and Noble to get a book. I bought my wife a peppermint tea and myself a coffee and an asiago pretzel at the Starbucks in the store. We sat down and talked for a little bit. When we got home, the babysitter was waiting for us. My wife drove her home. I played on the Wii. When she got back, we started watching SNL. I told her I had to go write something for my journal before the day ended. That’s what I am doing now.

Some days are filled with things to do. You do them, and you enjoy sharing time with the people you love. Today was one of those days. I had a good day, a simple day, a pleasurable day.

Somedays are made for simple pleasures.

When I was seven years old, my family moved to Mexico City. I was a tall and lanky kid. I wasn’t fond of brushing my hair, so I sported an afro of sorts. I wore glasses that were two sizes too big for my head. My head was two sizes too big for my body. The rims of the glasses were dark black. The lenses were like the bottoms of Coke bottles. Just not green. Did I mention tall? Yeah, I was about two sizes too big, period.

I used to ride the bus to school with my older brother. He’s five years older than me, so, naturally, he took to protecting me. He did a wonderful job of sticking up for his little brother. Looking the way I did, there was a lot of sticking to be done. He got really good at it. There was one kid in particular who decided he wanted to help the new kids, so he made it his mission, for several years, to help my brother become a better stick-up-for-his-Frankenstein-looking-little-brother kinda guy. I grew to hate that kid. He was older than me, older than my brother, and he insisted on…well…just being a pain in the ass. A mean, son-of-a-bitch, pain in the ass. I hated that kid.

When I was about 14, I was riding in the car with my father one day when we came upon some sort of disturbance in the road. We were coming down a hill towards a particularly dangerous “glorieta” (a circular median or roundabout). There were cars stopped there. Underneath one of those cars, there was a bicycle. On the ground, in the street, just to the right of the bike, there was a person. He was hurt. Badly. He jumped to his feet. As my father drove the car around the circular median, I saw the person who had jumped up from the street. He was limping badly yet hoping with pain. I can’t explain what that looked like. All I know is that I could FEEL that kid’s pain. Really FEEL it. Did I say kid? Yeah, it was a kid. At one point, my father’s car was directly across the median from this kid, and the kid looked into our car. His eyes were like dinner plates, and there was such intense fear in them. Thinking about it now tightens my stomach. There was blood running down his face from some gash hidden by his hair. There was blood on his shirt, his arms, one leg. I think he had shorts on. When he looked in the car, I looked at his eyes, at the fear, then I looked at his face. It was that kid from the bus, the one I hated.

The exchange between us lasted maybe a second or two. My dad’s car cruised passed the scene. My dad said something. Maybe it was a “bendito” for the poor kid who’d gotten into that terrible accident. I can’t be sure what he said because my stomach was a knot, and my heart sank deep inside my chest. There was a part of me that wanted to tell my dad to stop the car, to turn around, to back up…to do something. Because when he looked in the car, he recognized me, too. I know he saw me. I think he did. I mean, he did, but I think he saw ME, saw me and knew who I was.

But I said nothing. It made me sick. It makes me sick.

When I got home, I think I went to my room and cried. Maybe I didn’t. I can’t really remember for sure. It’s been a long time. All I know is that I thought about that kid that I hated. I thought about him and how much of a wretched human being I thought he was. I thought about how miserable he had made me. I thought about all the times I wished I could beat the crap out of him. I thought about how much I hated him.

Except I didn’t hate him anymore.

That moment is burned in my mind. I see his face right now. I can see the accident, the glorieta. I could take you there now. More than anything, at that moment, my childish, selfish, unenlightened need to hate that kid disappeared. He went from being some monster in my head to a human being.

Just. Like. Me.

That moment change my life forever. It was the moment that I came to a simple yet profound realization:

We are all just people; people with the same range of emotions, of feelings.

We all feel pain. We all feel fear. We all suffer. We all feel relief. We all feel joy. We all…feel.

That was the last time I hated someone.

Be bold and be brave. Crawl out of your cave. You built it to shelter you from yourself, anyway. Dare to be seen in the light. Nobody will see you until you stand up to be seen.

Turn your head to the sky. Don’t turn a blind eye to the endless sky above you. Prepare yourself now to give flight. The time to travel to another place is now.

Power comes from within. You will never find it outside of you. You may rely on others to help you along your path, but the energy to move your muscles comes from some unseen place past your flesh and deep inside of you being. Call it what you will, but it is simply the Source of it all.

Shake it off…shake off the fear, the trepidation, the uncertainty. Most importantly, shed off whatever it is that makes you fall back to the comfortable, unproductive rhythm that got you into that cave to begin with.

Be bold and be brave.

Do something different.

When I was in elementary school, my father caught me breaking up with a girl on behalf of her boyfriend, one of my best friends. I was dumping by proxy. He told me something I never forgot: “Don’t do anyone’s dirty work for them; make them soil their own hands. And let THEM live with what happens next.” He waited a moment, and, more gently said, “Son, sometimes what you say is just as important as HOW you say it.” Superficially, I didn’t quite understand what he meant, but there was a much deeper part of me that hung tight to that nugget of wisdom.

At the age of 36, I completely get what my father wanted me to understand. He wanted me to understand that we must own our thoughts, own our expression of those thoughts, and own the consequences. I think that latter part is the most compelling: own the consequences of your words and your actions. Be accountable…no, TAKE accountability. Actively take accountability for what you say and what you do. And take accountability for how you deliver your message. In the end, that will most often be what stays with others.

So, for me there is only one answer. I do not believe that the circumstances matter. I do not believe that emotions matter. I do not believe that the story I craft to justify my very bad behavior matters. These are all matters of the ego, not of the soul. I believe that when I speak, I should be giving voice to what is in my soul. And in my soul there is nothing but oneness with the Universe. To me, the message should always come from that place, and there is only one way to get that message across:

Say It with Love.

The other day I posted a comment about not living up to my potential. This comment elicited a response from my parents. They said that none of us really live up to our full potential. That reply to my post struck me. Perhaps it’s true. We all fall short of fully becoming the most supreme “us” that we can be. That shouldn’t be surprising. It makes sense, really. I can’t believe I hadn’t perceived it this way before.

Years ago, a wise person I knew told me, “As you get older, your have to become more mentally healthy. Life only gets trickier, so what you do to get by today probably won’t cut it tomorrow. You have to get better at it.” Most people you meet only grow at a rate that allows them to keep pace with the increasing complexity of their lives. It takes deep, personal growth and the cultivation of an increasingly healthy mental and emotional state to actually make progress in life. Without energy focused on personal growth, we are bound to be overwhelmed by the tidal wave of mounting pressures that face us as adulthood and responsibility expand. All it takes to ride that wave to shore, however, is one thing: focus. Focus, my friends. Focus.

And what does focus look like? Well, that depends. Focus is a very personal thing. It will and should be something that speaks to us all individual. It’s a personal revelation about where we need our energy to be channeled. It is “strength” the way someone like Marcus Buckingham describes it: that which gives you power, energy, to exist throughout the day. For instance, focus can mean a commitment to self-reflection, to self-analysis. It can mean a commitment to taking the fruits of that meditation and putting it into words, for the benefit of that individual and the benefit of those who may read those words. Kind of like someone would do with a journal or a blog. For example.

Focus can bring us one step closer to enlightenment. If the goal is something less lofty, then focus can at least lead to progress. And progress is a satisfying thing. If my friend was right, then progress means getting better at dealing with Life, with a capital. With progress, then, we can expect a greater degree of mental and spiritual health. As we get healthier, our ability to positively influence the world should increase. So, the bar continually gets raised.

It is true that none of us live up to our true potential because our true potential will grow as we grow. It should be a moving target. Our aspirations, by definition, will always exceed our abilities. And that is as it should be. From the day we are born until the day we die, every one of us will have that to wake up to.

Potential.

My kids either teach me directly or are the conduits for lessons that the Universe sees fit to send my way.

My little guy still poops in pull-ups. He has daytime pull-ups and nighttime pull-ups. The daytime ones are used for pooping. The nighttime ones are used as security whilst we all sleep the wee-hours of the night away. Many nights, he’ll wake me so he can pee. Some mornings he’ll wake up dry and pee as soon as he gets up. Other mornings it’s clear that he chose not to wait. This is simply how it goes.

Tonight, we were watching his older brother playing Mario Kart Wii. The little guy walked up with a daytime pull-up and said, “I have to poop.” Engrossed, both went through the routine: pants down, pull-up on, and off to his private corner to poop. We both watched the older guy displaying mastery of the circuit, racing around the track, weaving in and out of his adversaries and their many super-charged attacks. Time passed, and all indications of a successful poop became evident. So, off we went to change into jammies.

Imagine my horror when, upon pulling off his pull-ups, I saw a pair of Nemo underwear. They were soaking wet and…well…unclean. “Ethan!” I exclaimed. “You pooped in your underwear!” “WHAT?!?” he gasped. We were both utterly shocked. Details from this point on matter little. My son forgave me (his words), but the message in his eyes was clear: idiot. Yes, Dad is an idiot.

Tonight, I failed to be present. I failed to be in the moment. I should have flowed from full attention to Mario Kart to full attention to my little son, dependent on me to navigate the tricky task of removing pants and underwear, replacing with pull-up, and facilitating pooping. I botched it because I failed to move from one moment to the next, being present for one as much as the other. In the process, I managed to make us one pair of Nemo undies short. Later in the evening, Mommy came home, and I did it again. Nothing to do with poop this time, but I failed to successfully and completely move from one moment to the next. I failed to be present. I guess I don’t always get my lessons the first time.

The Universe works in mysterious ways, and often my kids serve as unwitting teachers. My wife often plays tutor. Sometimes, I’m all over the lesson. Other times…not so much. Like the one about being present.

So, the little guy was up at 4:00 AM, yelling my name. I heard him through the monitor. It’s a two-way deal, so I can talk to him through it. I asked what he wanted. Very matter-of-factly, he let me know he had to pee. That’s a positive when you’re at the tail-end of potty training, so I mustered up some gratitude for his progress and went to help him to the bathroom. He’s so chipper at 4:00 AM; it chaps my ass. His irresistible cuteness kicks in, though, and I just wind up smiling stupidly at him as he stands there trying to take care of business. He smiles back, every time.

Last night was no different. He did his thing, I took him back to bed, and his eyes were rolling back in his head before I left his room. Out. Me, on the other hand…well, I went back to bed and couldn’t find sleep. It eluded me, so my mind started processing. Saturday evening, I watched a recent episode of Oprah’s show on our TiVo. Suze Orman was the guest, and she was laying it out: what you need to do in 2009 to survive the economic downturn. If you thought last year was nutty, wait until people start DEALING with what went nutty last year. That’s what’s in store for 2009. So, Suze Orman wrote a book, an action plan for 2009. Seriously, it’s a book specifically written to help people get their financial houses in order in the year 2009. You can get it for free until January 15th. Check it out at Oprah.com/download. The whole point of the book and the show was to help give anyone willing to listen a plan for reducing debt and increasing their long-term financial security. The show left an impression on me and got some wheels turning.

Listening to Suze, contemplating the US economy, seriously considering consumerism, and stuff like that lead me to the conclusion that this whole system is screwed up. The U.S. Government actually encourages people to go out and spend money…that they don’t have. Huh? You want people to work their butts off making minimum wage, barely make enough to stay above the Poverty Level, and then run out with their “discretionary” cash and buy crap they really don’t need to survive. I am sure that the $200 XBox will definitely have a HUGE positive impact on the quality of life of that household making the $40K a year. Forget that their health care costs are through the roof and that they have no savings in the event of an unforeseen personal crisis. I know, I know: self-accountability. I get that. It’s all about choices, that is true. Still, the pressure to consume is incredible, the onslaught relentless. We should live in a world where you have to fight against pressure to buy, buy, buy. But that’s the engine that turns the world.

I think about it this way: imagine two companies, Company A and Company B. People work for Company A. They make Doodads. They churn them out and earn their wages. People work for Company B. They make Doomahakies. They churn them out and earn their wages. Marketing people at both companies convince everyone their lives are incomplete without Doodads and Doomahakies, neither of which are essential for life. So, people from Company A spend their left over pennies on Doomahakies, and people from Company B spend their left over pennies on Doodads. Both companies are profitable, people get paid, and life goes on. And on and on and on. As the machine chugs along, what progress is made? People are running to stand still, sweating to make money that we are encouraged over and over again to spend.

Spending is the measure of a healthy economy, so that means things are at their best when people are in a never-ending cycle of acquisition. That means we should be working our wholes lives to we can constantly buy stuff, and we should plan on having hordes of cash for retirement so that we can continue to spend money until we die. That’s how we keep the World Economy strong. How utterly depressing. Ba-a-ah! I feel like a sheep.

I fell asleep before I could conjure up a brilliant solution. I woke up not wanting to contribute to the World Economy. I am a bad Global Citizen! Bad Global Citizen!

Some days are just tougher than others. They aren’t all fun and games all of the time. That’s OK. They can’t all be good.

Or can they?

Even bad days are good days. After all, if you make it to 11:40 at night and have time to write down a few thoughts, then things can’t be all that bad, can they? Besides, the rough spots turn into smooth spots. The rough spots enhance appreciation of the smooth spots. So, nothing is wholly bad.

Like today. There are no horror stories for the day, just some rough spots. That said, we managed to get a few things done that might not otherwise have been completed. That’s good; it’s always nice to cross something off of the “to do list.” More importantly, being able to sit here and write makes me appreciate the life I have. I am grateful.

I have learned that gratitude today turns into abundance tomorrow. You can’t have one without the other. Just being alive to experience all of the pleasure and all of the pain is reason enough to wake up the next morning. It’s worth it just to see what will happen next.

There is always something good around the corner.