I came across a document, “The Thousand Year Journey“, I’d put aside some while ago.
My reason for keeping it was a reminder that for many people (myself included) it’s important to break the chains of routine – a destroyer of ambition.
Ask any 45 year old who once planned to travel the world before marrying, settling down and starting a family.
Spoiler alert: “When you’re a kid, everything is astonishing. Everything is new. So your brain is awake and turned on. Every passing second, your brain is learning something new, learning how the world works. The muscle of your brain is activated. And as you get older, and you brain has figured out the patterns of the way the world works – this is how you make money – this is how you graduate school – this is how you get a mortgage – this is how you have kids – I’ve got that unlocked and I know my car and how to go to work everyday and I gotta check out. All these things.”
Once your brain established a routine it stops. The alertness, the fascination with the way the world works goes away.
Routine is the enemy of time. It makes it fly by. I think that’s what travel in general does: it wakes up your brain.
The Thousand Year Journey https://vimeo.com/120206922 (4:13)
The creator, Jedidiah Jenkins wrote that his most important mentor was director Tom Shadyac (director of Ace Ventura, Liar Liar, The Nutty Professor, Patch Adams etc). “[Tom] absolutely, 100%, possibly more than anyone else alive today, changed my life.”
With such an accolade I had to look Tom up. It seems that after a bicycling accident Tom had a life revelation where he’s saying, “I wanna do things that matter. I want to contribute to the lives of human beings and to the planet that we all share,”
So Shadyac made a documentary called I Am (1 hour 19 mins and well worth it if you can find it online) and wrote a book called Life’s Operating Manual.
Watch I Am from beginning to end if you can but searching for it online I can only find the trailer (2:30)
What you learn will begin to inspire you, rewire your attitudes and the way you look at your life. I’m not suggesting you burn the furniture, saddle up the horses and head off into the sunset. Just crank up the Mission: Impossible music in your life.
It doesn’t matter who you are, YOU have a story and it deserves to be told.
If that isn’t enough to get you out of bed in the mornings, I’m sure you’ve seen this before but it’s always worth another listen: Steve Jobs on Life (1:36)
We all live in hope of something. Whatever that something may be we have to have the courage to put ourselves in the way of it first.
Graeme Dinnen
ResourcesForLife.net
