Thank you for the wonderful comments and feedback about yesterday’s post of “Don Quixote is my Valentine” It appears there are many of us who have been inspired and learned from the great Knight of La Mancha.  Including….

A dear friend of mine also posted about Don Quixote yesterday…but I just read it this morning.  Very inspiring message about how the song Dreaming the Impossible Dream, inspired his father which inspired him to ”become a night”.   Read it here… “I’m Married to Don Quixote”

Brad Barton, a great man, magician, speaker and teacher whom I greatly admire (and who also loves and quotes Don Quixote) once said this to me… “You don’t have to be sick to get better.”  He then went on to explain that tragically sickness is what must often occur before many will take a close look at their life styles and unhealthy choices.  It’s reactive versus pro-active….again and again.  It’s too often not just that way with our personal health, but also our relationships with others, our jobs, and even our workplaces.  We see that things are falling apart, morale is low, engagement is suffering, teamwork is not happening like it should… our culture is sick.  As a re-active measure we attempt the “quick fix” shot of B12 and organize a “fun day” for the troops.  It’s well intentioned, and well attended (mandatory fun!)  And nearly everyone enjoys the experience.  But if we don’t change our lifestyle(the way we care for our bodies), our working style (the way we nurture and care for our culture) then we haven’t changed much and when the B12 or adrenaline shot wears off we will most likely find ourselves in an even poorer state than before.  We need to de-tox, we need to revisit our core or find it for the first time. We need to know WHAT is most important and we need to understand WHY to a depth and level that inspires us to do WHATEVER it takes to see it realized.  And we need to be completely honest with ourselves… and admit that “Nothing in our lives is going to start getting better until we do.”  I share all of this, in this way because of a film I recently watched…called “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead”

At my college daughters suggestion I also recently watched this documentary of an Australian businessman who had neglected his health while he had been building his career.  He then found himself taking too many prescribed medications to manage his growing number of ailments.  So he decided, like Don Quixote, to create a new reality for his life.  He dreamed his own impossible dream, and challenged his own unconquerable foe.  But, unlike Don Quixote, he defeated his windmill by completing a 60 day juice fast which changed his life in many ways.  Only one of which was by eliminating his need for all of his prescriptions because proper health and nutrition cured all of his conditions.  But more than this, his story, like Don Quixote’s has inspired many others to do the same.  http://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com/

The film tiltle Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead is pretty strong and while I don’t personally feel like I am any of those things (at least not dead)… I do feel more tired more often than I would like to admit.  And my immune system isn’t what it used to be… and a couple weeks ago when the FLU hit me like a freight train… I had to admit that I hadn’t given my body or myself the best chance for a healthy and quick recovery.  Embarassingly I had waited to get sick before I started getting more thoughtful and deliberate about what I put into my body to get better.  I KNOW BETTER than this. But just “knowing better” isn’t enough. Most people seem to know better than they do.  To have a healthy anything we must DO BETTER what we KNOW.

So I RE-Committed myself to getting better without waiting to get so sick that I felt I “had to”. I bought the juicer the guy in the film used and am practicing with it for a few days in preperation for my first ever 10 Day, juice fast.  10 days without chewing food only drinking it sounds a bit daunting for a muncher, grazer, snacker like myself…but I am excited about the potential for more energy, more clarity, and more vibrancy of spirit and outlook.  I know this will be good for me.  But not just for me, I know it will be good for my kids to see Dad doing a hard thing….for right reasons.  Finding a 10 stretch at home looks a bit challenging but the last 2 weeks of March looks like my window.  In the meantime intend to practice with this juicer until I am a blackbelt with it…or at least a yellow belt.

Whether with your workplace, your home place or your personal space…. we must remember that Life is just life, it can’t make decisions or keep commitments - Life just goes keeps going on.  It might seem like it sometimes gets harder, or better but it doesn’t.  It just is.  It is our response to life and our preperation for life that can and does make the difference.  As life is going on …we make choices in preperation for it, or response to it.  As we prepare - by improving what we know, and as we act, by doing better what we know…our lives and our abilities to contribute positively to life experience of others is improved…or better.

So I propose a toast… and raise each of you a glass of juice (celery, kale, cucumber, pineapple and kindness)… That we join together in a quest for a More Better Life - That we Re-Awaken the Impossible Dreamer within us….and that Courageously charge the windmills or giants that stand between us and Glory.  (All this juicing is making me giddy)

Kirk out

This entry was posted on Friday, February 15th, 2013 at 1:04 pm and is filed under T4D. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.