How to be increadible.

We are all incredible. I really believe this. I truly believe that everyone has the capability to be incredible. I think that running a marathon about a year after my accident, when we were advised I may never walk or talk again, is incredible. I think finishing an Ironman is incredible. Running a half marathon followed by a full marathon the next day is amazing. I am amazing. So are you.


So why are we not all incredible all the time. Why did it take a brain injury for me to realize how to be incredible. In fact what is incredible? I think for me it was finding a purpose. I don't think I had one before. I don't think I even understood what that meant. I mean I thought it was to have the 2.5 kids, a dog, a house in the suburbs, a job that seemed to come easy and make more money than the effort I put into it.

I know that is crazy, I know that it not realistic; however, it is what we are surrounded with every day. Ad's, movies and TV all do this: buy that, get this, come here, and you will have success. So I bought it. I did all that. I mean I tried to do it anyway. Where was the success? How do you find success. I had a job that paid me ok, I had a roof over my head, I had food in my belly, I had allot of food in my belly. I had luxuries but I had no purpose. What was I doing everything for?

The brain injury hit me hard. It changes everything. It even changes your understanding of what everything is. Everything about everything was changed.

At first you are happy you are alive. You don't quite know what happened. As you come to in the hospital you're happy everyone else is happy. You don't know why they're happy, but you're happy none the less. They start to be amazed that you can swallow and survive without a tube. These things come easy, but its hard not to feel great when others seem to be so impressed by you, well, just not dying.

You learn to walk and talk again, and you get to go the bathroom by yourself. You get a piece of your skull put back on, and you get to leave the hospital. You don't get to live alone at this point but you get to start being you. Whoever that you now is.

You follow all the steps, you do all the tests, you listen to all the experts, and go through physical and mental rehab. You challenge the experts, and over come your limitations. That is, until you can't.

Then you go through the realisation that you will never not be disabled. You get depressed, get over being depressed and decide that although you may have limitations that is not an excuse to stop trying.

What I have found out is that the purpose is to keep trying. It's not to sit and wait for it to happen. It's to not worry about all the shit you can't do. It is to go out and do something. It doesn't even matter what it is. Just do something, anything. Find out what you are interested in. If there is nothing you're interested in, hell fake it. Life is about trying, not succeeding. Success is great but it doesn't last for ever.

I succeded in waking up. I succeded in having my skull put back on. I succeeded in using the bathroom by myself. If you stop when you succeed, if you think "if only I could succeed at (fill in blank here)" you will stop when (fill in blank here) is reached, completed, finished.

Yet we live in a world where it is easy to stop. It takes effort to try. It doesn't take any effort to sit back, and hope a pill or surgery will fix that feeling inside you. If only I had x, or if only x had me, or I had that, or this, if one more of those, if only I didn't have a brain injury, or a bad boss. You know what, there will never be a time when there isn't a something. That is the point. Don't give up. When you do give up, keep trying to get it again. It does come.

I mean this is coming from someone who was 'poor me' for years. The grass was always greener, it was always someone else's fault, or the teacher was a dick, or the boss was a dick, or the parents were dicks. I could always find a reason not to try. In fact sometimes I spent more time trying not to try than it would take just to do whatever it was I was trying not to try.

Now I just try. I have no idea if I am going to succeed. In fact the odds of me succeeding are much less than the most of the population. That's just a statistical fact. My engine is broken. It doesn't run like it used to. You know what though. I don't care. What else am I supposed to do? Stop? No. The point now is to make sure no one goes through what I went through. I don't think I can change the world, but why shouldn't I try?

What are the alternatives? Give up? Live off a disability income? Stop trying to try?

So for me, I found my purpose. I didn't find it in school, I didn't find it in work, I didn't find it by doing the things I shouldn't have done when I thought I was trying to find my purpose. I didn't find it when I was mad at the world for not being the way I expected it to be; the way it was marketed to me; the way it was marketed to all of us. I found it by having a brain injury. That is messed up. That is not how purpose is supposed to be found, but there it is.

I have no idea where it is going, I have no idea if I will succeed, I have no idea if I will wind up with egg on my face. I don't care. Because if it doesn't work, the egg will come off, there will be another thing to do. Life will not end. It will never be the way I expect it to be. It will not be possible to predict it; however if we prepare, if we plan and we keep trying, well something will eventually stick. That is incredible. So just try.