How to make your wishes come true

I'll do a blogpost on something more corrective & kettlebell related soon, but I just had a Facebook conversation with a friend that brought to mind a lot of conversations that I've had over the past year(s).

As I look at today's date (18 August 2009), I realized that I've yet to complete my SCHEDULED travel for this year. I still have San Diego, St. Paul, New York, New Jersey, Korea, and perhaps 1 more destination on tap before the holiday season.

And the roster for the first HALF of next year (2010) is looking pretty hectic already. Australia & New Zealand in late January & early February, probably a couple of domestic trips in late Feb - April (including Gray Cook's CK-FMS workshop in St. Paul in May), Scotland in May (or June), followed by Denmark in late May, and Japan sometime in June or July.

One of the comments I keep hearing is "You're so lucky to get to travel like that". And the other is "You're so lucky that you get to meet & train with the people you do."

TRUST ME... I KNOW.

Not a day goes by that I don't count my blessings. From the people I get to meet, to the people I get to teach, to the people I get to study and train with, it's frickin' amazing being me.

But for every sunrise, there's a sunset. Don't get me wrong. I'm not boohooing my life, but there'll come a time when the piper needs to get paid, and I keep thinking back to that line in Spiderman where "With great power comes great responsibility."

And that just reminds me how much work I have yet to do to make the most of what I've been taught, what I've had the chance to learn, what resources I've been given, and what people I've had the blessings to have in my life. And that keeps the fire lit under my backside at all hours, every day, in every season, year after year.

If you want to live your dreams, be ready to suffer. If you can work hard enough to suffer, you'll get to have glimpses of the best parts of your dreams in the moments of your waking hours.

To all of you who've come into my life, thank you for all the richness you've brought to it. Whether from meeting me at the Inosanto Academy and telling me that you learned English from my articles & columns in Black Belt Magazine, from talking to me at an RKC instructor workshop and telling me that a blogpost made the difference for you in your rehab, from an e-mail of thanks from a clinic patient who can finally breathe deeply without pain, to the sweet hugs & kisses I get from my beloved wife & son at the end of a day, YOU ALL ARE PART OF MY DREAMS COME TRUE.

Thank you.