Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - MORNING ENCOURAGEMENT | Powerful Motivation To Start Your Day | 30 Minutes

Episode Date: December 3, 2021

"Nothing can dim the light that shines from within" - Maya Angelou    

I've spent the last year incredibly focused, building, creating. In fact, I've spent my whole life building, putting countless hours into something that I believe wholeheartedly will allow me to leave this place a little better than I've found it. And I'm not unique in this way, right? We all have ambitions. We all work toward positive change in our lives. It's essential.

But like everything in our world, there is more there than meets the eye. Last weekend I decided to head over to the beach. Summer's turned to fall, I wanted to get one last trip in, kind of bring closure to an amazing summer. And I was walking around and came across a sandcastle, standing in beautiful detail, seemingly untouched by human hands after being completed. yet slowly deteriorating from the elements. And seeing this was a little disconcerting, right? You have this natural tendency to want to preserve it and the effort that went into building it.

But the more and more I've thought about it, the more it occurred to me that the true beauty of it all is not in the sand castle. It's not in the towers sculpted to perfection where the meticulously carved out doors, windows, and bridges, they're only symbolic. We don't live for the final product. We live for the journey, the adventure, the joy of the process,

tackling the unknown, and turning it into something of beauty. That's why we get up every day. That's why landscapes, oceans, and skylines run away with our imagination. They're representative of what makes us feel alive. Sometimes it becomes extremely easy to forget that. The degree, the championship, the executive position, these things we seek, they are validation, but they are not life. What you do every day is life.

How you turn ordinary things into extraordinary things, cherish the time you spend. there is nothing of greater importance. Sand castles will not stand forever. The tide, the wind, a million things will assist in bringing the sand back to its original form. Just like us, its time is finite. But the joy of creating such a masterpiece can never be lost. That's why we build. It's why we create.

A little girl walked up to the edge of a river, took a piece of paper out of her pocket, folded it into a little boat, and pushed it out into the open water. The little boat made its way with the current, kind of unsure where it would take him or what it would ultimately mean. And for days, he felt helpless, lost. until one day a storm pushed him to the edge of the riverbank. A man picked up the little boat and began examining it. Is this my home? asked the little boat. Well, wouldn't you be the only one who knows the answer to that?

The man asked. I suppose so, said the boat. It doesn't feel like home. So the man nodded, started to put the boat back in the water. Before the little boat cried out, wait, I don't want to go back in the water. I'm scared, I'm lost, I'm alone. The man, with the reassuring smile, pushed the boat back out into the water and said,

look, I've felt how you feel, and I've been where you are. I know what it's like to not know where home is, but the only way to find it is to carry on. That water is your path, and little boat you're not alone. The little boat kind of gathers himself, starts making his way down the river. A few more hours go by. Suddenly he runs into some plants that are popping out over the surface of the water.

He realizes pretty quickly he's stocked. He can't move. The panic starts to set in. He's freaking out. He's thinking, now I'm never going to find home. All these terrible thoughts start going through his mind. He's screaming for help. But then he sees a mom with her son over on the shore.

The child points to the little boat. Says, Mom, look, another one's stuck. We need to help it. The mom says, no, this one will break free to, just like the last one did. Give it some time. The little boat hears them and starts thinking, wait, someone else got out of this situation. The thought never really crossed his mind, that it was possible. So he takes a breath, starts rocking from side to side, building momentum.

A few seconds later, the plant's grip starts to lessen. He nudges his way to the front of the brush. And sure enough, it slips back into the flow of the stream. The little boy points his mom, look, the little boat got out, she says. He sure did, baby. He just had to realize that he could. So the boat, again, collects himself, keeps making his way down the river proud now, right? Feeling accomplished growing into a paper boat of his own making.

When sure enough, that wind shifted direction. Suddenly he's not able to go where he wants to go, starts drifting towards the muddy riverbank. How could this be happening again, he thinks to himself? But see, that little boat started to learn a thing or two about life. That it wasn't all smooth sailing, that it would present its obstacles. But that contained within that little paper sea vessel was far more power than he knew. So he unfastened the excess paper on the back and the sides of the boat and created a little sail, and at first nothing happened.

He waited. Knowing that this was it, this was make or break for him, he adjusted one more time. He could see the shore, feet from where he was. And then suddenly he felt himself turned. The boat started making its way back downstream. Against all odds, he had managed to get back on track. And he was so excited about this that he didn't even notice the water had cleared out and led him to this giant opening.

It took him a second to adjust, but when he did, he saw boats of all shapes and sizes from paper to the largest boats he'd ever seen. So he went up to the first one he saw, a little red and white canoe drifting around. He said, I can't even believe this. You have no idea what I went through to get here. I almost landed in the wrong place Then I got stuck in some brush I thought it was over for me

Then to top it all off I start drifting towards the muddy riverbank and I barely adjusted course I'm talking seconds The red and white canoe smiles and says well so did I And that's just it That's the magic of this place You can't even get here

Until you learn that the wrong stops are inevitable but that they don't define you, that you have the strength to keep searching. Until you learn that you have the ability to get yourself unstuck, that life setbacks aren't forever and that you can find a way. Until you learn that some things you can't control,

but how powerful are the ones you can. As the saying goes, you can't change the wind, but Little Boat, you can always adjust your sails. These are the things we all had to learn. Little Boat, look at it. said, but how was I supposed to know that? That I wasn't the only one. Well, that's the thing.

You don't really find out until you arrived. I guess it's just one of those funny aspects of life. Well, I'm going to tell the world, said the little boat, that no one is alone. That we all get off at the wrong stops. That we all get stuck. That we all have to adjust course. But the trick is to keep sailing down river, no matter what. Keep sailing down river.

I'm going to tell everyone that they are not alone. That's a brilliant idea, said the red and white canoe. Now come on, I'll show you around. You're going to really like this place. You ever wonder how much of you has materialized? Like if what F. Scott Fitzgerald says is true, and our lives are defined by opportunity, even the ones we miss,

then how much remains in the ether? And I don't think it's about playing a game of what if. You know, that would be endless. It would be self-defeating. No one's perfect. I don't even really think it's about making a right turn instead of a left. Because as long as you're moving

and moving with conviction, life ultimately brings you where you need to be. But more, my concern is the steps never brought. My ideas on the hatch, my opportunities, I either knowingly or unknowingly left on the shelf. Because it didn't seem real enough. Like a Broadway play between my ears that as a spectator I knew would end. After all, that's what stories do. How much of ourselves have we cast aside as simply the things we don't say out loud?

At first, it's infinite. We've yet to be taught to limit because limits aren't things, their ideas, and ideas must be adopted. That's why they say, some of life's best things were done by people too ignorant to know they were impossible, too naive of the notion that they couldn't say them out loud. Then it's comparison, they have what I want. But it was meant for them and not me. How delusional to think I could have it. How crazy to think that life has yet to be written. And I am an author. My date is with normalcy in the box where I keep those things we don't say out loud.

And then we look around and we see highlight reels. We see awards and vacations and smiles. But we don't stop to think, maybe they're just like me. Maybe they're people who struggle and question themselves and doubt the road ahead. No, it must be the past diverged. They took happiness and I took those things we don't say out loud. And then there's everyday life when things don't go as planned. When the world presents curveballs and you haven't learned to hit off speed.

So you feel small and you feel inadequate and ill-equipped. And you could reach out, but that's not cool. That's not right. That's something that you don't say out loud, but we keep it in, like all in. And eventually it becomes the if only's and I wish I had. It's the quiet envy gazing longingly towards those who just cared less, who realized maybe life's not as serious as we make it out to be, who turn thoughts to things, not by burying but by embodying them.

And maybe that's the trick to unlock the gate keeping your perceived reality from the possibility of a new one. The one you could create, if only you promoted your fleeting thoughts to forward progress. See, dreams can fail to come to fruition in two places, in your head and outside of it. But at least outside, it has a chance. At least outside, you can take the common, normal, everyday background and make it the back drop to your movie, where you play a lead role.

But it must be accepted and acknowledged, not thought of or even whispered, but screamed so that the details and the tributalities that that exists now work for you. That's right, they are now yours. Not because you thought about it, but because you reached out a hand and you took. You asked the world for something. And in life, it will always be true

that you don't get what you do not ask for. So when you find yourself staring up a wall comprised of self-defeating narratives and manufactured limits, be ignorant, be irrational, be the reason your dream have a chance. And when you look around and you see more and wonder why you don't have it, know that you can. You're allowed to. If you sacrifice, you will, but you must believe you are worthy of it. Not in the back of your head where you keep your locker combo and movie quotes,

but in reality where words bounce off lips. And when you feel like life is treating you unfairly like they're happier or have it better, know that life is peaks and valleys, not just for you, But for everyone, in how you internalize that and carry on makes the difference. And when you feel lost or stuck, you are not hopeless, but in progress. Being broken down so that you can be reconstructed, stronger, better. Victory is not in hiding those struggles, but accepting them as the difference, as the reason you created the miraculous. Not because you had dreams, but because you said them out loud.

For a handful of years, I'd made this annual trip to the desert in Utah. I'd take some time to be solo to clear my head, leave my phone in the cabin, which didn't have service anyway. I'd grab a backpack with some food, my camera, and I'd just go exploring. From the time the sun came up to the time I went down, I'd follow trains. Follow trails through the canyons, climb over rocks, wedge myself between boulders, traverse open fields, I would get lost in something so far outside the realm of my standard day-to-day that life, well, didn't feel like life. It felt surreal. One day I was out there and I guess it got kind of carried away making a running video.

I looked down at the map as the sun was setting and realized I was miles from the car. in the desert. Not a good place to be. And this panic set over me. It was a mix of fear and annoyance with myself for letting something so stupid happen. This was precisely the vulnerability that the routine of our day-to-day lives

seeks to mitigate. This is Society 101. We pay taxes and stop at red lights in exchange for the certainty that we won't die in the middle of a random desert. But hey, look, life comes at you quickly. Suddenly, that safety. The empty net wasn't there to protect me.

Now what? I started running in what I believed to be the general direction I came from. Backpack full of camera gear and empty water bottles bouncing up and down with each step. My heart was pounding so fast that it felt like a movie. It didn't feel real, and as the sun lowered itself behind the mountains, I wasn't quite sure what it would leave for me. Look, we know obstacles hurt, but the unknown

known really hurt. In the sky, it turned this beautiful, blue, purple, otherworldly color. I guess it was the landscape saying goodbye before it faded to black. I knew it would be black, black, like can't see the hand in front of your face, black. And as I continued on, the night sure validated my concerns. I had to stop running. to walk because I could no longer see the bushes and rocks I was stepping over. Eventually I paused for a second, reeled myself in, put my hands on my hips, sighed, looked

up. Notice something I never really had before. The sky. Well, that makes zero sense, one might think, considering I'm a human being and I live on Earth where there's very clearly a sky, but no, not like that. Not like Utah Desert Sky. a trillion tiny candles that felt so real that I felt for the first time nothing separated them from me. I was a part of it. I was immersed in a blanket of stars. If I could live for 20-something years and never see that,

imagine the smaller miracles I've been blindly dancing around. Imagine the beauty that isn't hanging directly over my head. It was out there, and I vowed from now on I'd find it just like this path home, hey, let's start there. And perhaps in the moment was that I felt part of something bigger than my mini-crisis. Or maybe it was because common sense had finally set in.

But I got this feeling of calm. By momentarily losing myself in the stars, I came back down to Earth. I understood everything would be okay that worst case, eh, just pace back and forth until the sun came up. I mean, sure, it wasn't 100% everything would be fine, but is it ever?

I proceeded to walk forward, eyes fixated on the ground in front of me using the screen on my camera as a guiding light. Perhaps this wasn't the right path, but at this point it was the one I had committed to. Some time went by and I saw in the distance what I was pretty sure was either a cell phone or a flashlight, which I know what a concept. I followed it more sure of myself with each step forward, eventually passing a sign indicating that the trailhead was a quarter of a mile in the same direction. I paused again and smiled to myself.

Ultimately, I found the parking lot, hopped in the car, just as the odds suggested I would. And I departed from my mini-adventure. As I was driving back, windows down, headlights cutting through the darkness, the only sound, the tires making their way over the gravel below, I sat there thinking and realized, I actually felt sad. I felt like I wasn't ready to depart that little journey. That I needed that uncertainty in my life. I needed to conquer something new.

I thought about the abrupt panic, the wolves, rattlesnakes, and scorpions that danced around in my head. And how such a small, almost laughable, step outside of my comfort zone felt like a tremendous leap. I guess our most important moments come when we least expect them. And while I learned a lot about myself that night, I learned that there will be times we find ourselves wandering through the darkness of life. Maybe ill-prepared, angry at ourselves for not foreseeing that things would unfold the way they did.

But these obstacles are most likely. likely solvable and small in the grand scheme of things, and that's not even the most important part. They are the gateway into our souls, into the ecstasy and the adventure that live outside the confines of parameters and checklists and routines. They remind us to look up and see what really matters. To peel back the manufactured must-haves we erroneously bow down to, I'd have to live that moment to understand what it meant, to see that the things we most fear are the things we most need, that real dreaming it happens when we're awake and that anytime you feel abandoned or lost or alone, look up at that blanket of stars. Realize they're not against you, but a part of you.

A beacon of hope along the way. And no, they can't promise you answer. or guaranteed outcomes. But I can promise you you wouldn't want that anyway. Sometimes when you don't know where you're going, the best thing to do is go there. A wise man once stated that an object at rest stays at rest.

And while his rationale is a little different than mine, I'm going to borrow from his premise. Right? Because when you moot, even if you don't know where you're going, you put yourself on a collision course with something. You put into existence an entity to react to. Some call it destiny. Others call it fate.

I call it simply initiative. Because if your journey is hypothetical, you have nothing to celebrate nor A sailboat can adjust its sails once it leaves the harbor, right? It can learn from and manipulate its surroundings, make sure it arrives at a destination, right? It learns and adapts along the way. But from the harbor it speculates. It expounds upon a path that might be straighter, might be faster, might be more thought out

and tied together than the crazy sailors who took off for the horizon, but in actuality it goes nowhere. In the real world it is stagnant and I could be wrong but I'd make the argument 10 out of 10 times that the real world is where we want our results. My proof? Well a journey that started with insurance and evolved into music in songwriting and audio production then video production and creative writing then a sweet spot that kind of combined everything. A spot that didn't make its way to my inbox with an exact address. A spot that required a lot of failure and lessons learned and disappointment, but man, more than that, so much fun. My proof is sitting down

right now in real time, letting my fingers create a bridge from nothing to something of value. By the way, after sitting here staring at a blank screen for hours, it's just starting. Could I be wrong? Could I screw up? Could I wildly miss the mark? Yes. In fact, it happens more than I'd like to admit. But here's the beauty, even if I am wrong. I now have something to work with. Something has been brought into existence. And well, that means I'm officially further along than I once was. And I've heard over and over again that there is no perfect moment, that you have to just go, And the idea, I mean, it makes sense. It's impossible not to understand,

but it's one of those things that until you feel it, it doesn't mean anything. How can you miss something you've never experienced? Well, to put it in a way that help me understand, you aren't going because what do you have to lose? You're going because everything is to be gained. The answers that you pick up along the way. the little coins you pick up in Super Mario, right?

You have to start collecting pieces of a puzzle that you can then arrange. I truly believe that one of the most important ideas we need to hold on to moving forward as personal agency, self-believe. And I say that because I feel like I'm watching it slip. There are cases where we literally don't know or understand that it's within our own ability

and control to change our lives. No person or group or letter in the mail is going to come along and green light your idea. In fact, you might not even really know what your idea means or how it will look. And that's not only okay. It's amazing. It's the marble that you get to chisel away at to create something. See, life is not the perfect execution of a plan. And life is the courage to make your way into a world that no one really understands or knows anything about.

And I'm not talking physics or biology or quantum mechanics. I'm talking about the real life that is emergent from those areas of study. Right? There is no perfect formula for happiness. But it will always be true that immobility or standing still is antithetical to process. And there is plenty of data that supports the idea. Progress equals happiness. We want to move towards something.

So that's what this is about, right? Here's to not being scared of what we don't know. Because somewhere in the realm of what we don't know exists what we need most. So yeah, stop waiting for the perfect moment. And yes, begin. But not because it's an ultimatum. Do it because the things that make life fun and intriguing and exciting and ultimately

worthwhile they live on the other side of your front door.